


Cake

by Martha



Series: Tristes Tropiques [3]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Smarm, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-06-01
Updated: 1999-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 59,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Martha/pseuds/Martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The darkest secret of Blair's past returns to haunt him in the midst of a difficult murder investigation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cake

> "Today has just been the icing on a very bad cake." 

  
Fred Angelone to Jim Ellison,_ Private Eyes_

 

****

1: casade, washington (tuesday afternoon)  


OK, so maybe it was a crazy way to try and stay sane, but you know something? You go with whatever works. He'd known that all his life, really, and the last couple of years had simply driven the point home. Whatever you've gotta do, man. Whatever it takes.

Blair shifted his armload of books to the other side. He was trying to figure out why Jim hadn't liked dinner last night, because right now, that worked. As long as he kept thinking about Jim's dinner as though it were the only thing that mattered in the entire universe, he had a fighting chance of getting through this.

Oh, he realized suddenly. The rosemary.

That was it. Had to be. Everything else had been exactly the same, as close as he could make it, anyway. The same kind of onions, the same kind of olive oil, walnut pieces from the same bag in the cabinet, the rest of the package of linguine Blair had used the first time.

But it had been a week, maybe a week and a half since the first time he made that recipe, and all that time, the few leftover sprigs of rosemary had been sitting in a ziplock baggie in the bottom of the fridge. The rosemary had seemed fresh enough when Blair rubbed one of the leaves between his thumb and forefinger to release the fragrance -- sure, it had seemed fresh enough, but surprise, surprise, you're not the sentinel around here, are you?

Poor Jim. The man had known something wasn't quite right the minute he walked in the door. Blair had seen the look of puzzlement on his face. Jim was smiling, but he seemed ever so slightly confused. No doubt, Blair thought in retrospect, because he'd been trying to figure out why something that ought to smell delicious ... didn't.

"You making that walnut spaghetti stuff again, Chief?"

"Well, yeah. Is that all right?" Blair had asked, wiping a drop of olive oil off his laptop. He probably shouldn't try to work while he was cooking, but he'd really intended to get his syllabus written before dinner. "You seemed to like it OK when I made it last time, so I just thought --"

"Great," Jim said, relaxing into a full smile. "No, you're right, it was good. Just lemme take a load off for five minutes, and I'll set the table." And he hadn't said another word about it. Ate maybe half of the serving Blair had heaped on his plate, then apologized, saying he'd had two burgers plus chili fries for lunch, and was still a little full.

Right, Jim. Like I've ever seen you turn down food before.

Blair groaned, brought back to the present by the weight in his arms. These damn textbooks were about to give him permanent curvature of the spine, and it looked as though the line at the cash register hadn't moved five feet in the past half hour. Grumbling, he knelt awkwardly and deposited the stack of books on the floor in front of him. It had been a couple of years since he'd needed to buy books for a class, and nothing had changed, looked like. The lines at the beginning of the quarter were murderous, and it wasn't safe to wait and buy books after the crowds had dispersed later in the week. The student bookstore was notorious for running out of texts that it would take them six weeks to reorder.

Screw that. He should have stayed with Jim today anyway. So what if the bookstore ran out of his books? Not like it was the end of the world. But Jim had known this was the first day of the quarter, and he'd been insistent Blair get to campus. He managed to stay with Jim most of the morning anyway, but he could tell Jim was on the verge of deciding this case was just too much for an anthro grad student to handle, and finally Blair had started to worry that if he pushed too hard, refused too vehemently to go to campus when there was no denying he really did have a lot to do, Jim might shut him out of this case for good. Just looking for an excuse to do it anyway, Blair was pretty certain.

So here he was, but dammit, he wanted to be with Jim. OK, so this one was bad, this one was just about the worst, come to think of it, but that was all the more reason for him to be at Jim's side every step of the way.

And as suddenly as a switch being thrown, all of Blair's carefully constructed barricades were down again.

He moaned under his breath, seeing it all. The upstairs hallway of that expensive suburban home. Walls painted bone white above the dado, pinstriped wallpaper below. White carpet. The patrolman who had found the bodies watching Blair with frank curiosity. Blair had been looking at that wallpaper. Had it been here the last time? He couldn't remember. He honestly couldn't remember.

(Don't go there. Just leave it the hell alone.)

Blair squeezed his eyes shut. The rosemary. That's what it had been, all right. Mystery solved. Who'd have thought a guy who could happily eat Wonderburgers for lunch five days a week would be put off by week-old rosemary in his linguine?

When he opened his eyes again he saw the line had inched forward a few steps. Blair shoved the stack of books a little further with the side of his foot. The topmost one was J. Herrell's Oral Tradition and Ecological Consiousness in Chinchaysuyu. Herrell was teaching a seminar at Rainier this quarter, and getting him was a real coup for the department. Blair would have been crazy not to jump at the chance to take a class from the man, but he had to admit, he was having trouble working up a whole lot of enthusiasm for it. He wanted to be at Jim's side, not standing in line at the bookstore, not even sitting in a seminar with Professor J. Herrell himself. He belonged with Jim, even when things got bad.

Blair felt a wave of heat wash through him, thinking about just how bad it really was.

Jim had told him he didn't have to go to the scene, but of course Blair couldn't have let him face this all alone. And then when they parked outside the house, Jim had suggested again that Blair might want to wait in the truck. Blair hadn't done that either. He had stopped just outside Gwen's bedroom door, though. There were some places he couldn't go.

Well, actually, he hoped that wasn't true. He wanted to think that if Jim had truly needed him there, physically at his side, he would have been able to take those next few steps no matter what. But the upstairs hallway had been close enough last night. Jim had squeezed Blair's shoulder briefly, smiled that sad, kind smile of his, and then walked in alone.

(Dammit, Sandburg, not now. You want to fall apart in the middle of the bookstore?)

Blair looked up at the big clock mounted over the Rainier University logo on the front wall. Four-fifteen already. Where had the day gone? Not where he'd wanted it to, that was for sure. He still needed to stop by the department office and run off copies of his syllabus for the intro class he was teaching again this quarter. And he really should stop by the library too and make sure the reserve desk had pulled his books.

And he just didn't think he could handle it. His control was slipping too fast.

He remembered the wicker bookshelf full of stuffed animals. A dirty smudge on the carpet, near the door where Blair could see it, even though he desperately didn't want to. The way Jim had looked when he finally came out of Gwen Angelone's bedroom. His face was an expressionless mask, but Blair knew those eyes. Shuttered as they were, as blank as Jim tried to make them, Blair could read right through them.

Inside, Jim was screaming too.   
__

Goddamn you, Charlie Spring, Blair thought. Tears came to his eyes, but he didn't give a damn anymore, even if he was in the middle of the bookstore. _God damn you. If you'd had even one psychic bone in your worthless body, surely you would have seen this coming._

    
****

2: riverside, california (ten years ago)

 

"Eventually, the anthropologist comes to feel at home nowhere, and remains psychologically maimed."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques _

 

Blair was taking it all in. Organ music, sunlight streaming through the rose windows, water lapping against the fiberglass sides of the pool. Interesting things happened where the water and sunlight met through the sheet of plexiglas bordering the fourth side. Light bounced on the surface of the water and skimmed the plexiglas, turning it opaque in sparks and flashes.

The man waiting for him in the pool smiled reassuringly and gestured for Blair to come forward. Six molded fiberglass steps led down into the water. Blair sucked in a deep breath and thought, _Curitiba, here I come.   
_

He took the first tentative step down. The water was a little cool, but not uncomfortable. He took another step. The hem of his robe was in the water now. He felt the extra weight on his shoulders. The rest of the steps he took more quickly, the water mounting up to his thighs. The man in the water took Blair's arm to steady him as soon as he was close enough and asked him quietly, "Ready, son?"

"Hey, now or never, man." Blair didn't realize how his voice had carried until he heard the ripple of nervous laughter traveling up the aisle. "Sorry!" he whispered.

Reverend Cleary didn't take offense. "The Lord's ready for this one now!" he exclaimed, and this time open laughter spilled back from the congregation. Cleary put his arm around Blair's shoulders and his other hand on his forehead, palm flat. "Just bend your knees a little when I push," he explained.

Blair nodded and closed his eyes. "Buried in the likeness of His death." Cleary said. "Raised up in the likeness of His resurrection."

Blair felt the pressure on his forehead and let Cleary push him backward and down into the pool. Water crept up his back under the robe. Cleary tightened his firm grip around Blair's shoulders and moved his other hand from Blair's forehead to hold his nose. Blair felt the cool, spreading buoyancy against the back of his head. The water covered his ears, and all at once the sounds of the building and the people in it were richer, slower, more rare. Another moment, and the water was over his face. Only then did it occur to Blair how utterly vulnerable he was in this position. He opened his eyes calmly, looking up. From underneath, the surface of the water was only a shimmering silver mirror.

The moment seemed to last forever, and he was dimly surprised to discover that he didn't need to breathe anymore. The mirror overhead washed red and then cleared, and he found himself gazing calmly up into a jungle canopy so dense not a ray of sunlight got through. He heard a roar like rushing waters, and behind it, a low, hollow note that went prickling down his spine like an icy finger.

Then Blair was pulled upright again. Water poured off his head, and the robe dragged his arms down with its sodden weight. Cleary steadied Blair until he found his feet, then hugged him hard. Water splashed against the sides of the pool, waves crossing and recrossing, and Blair was so shaken and stunned he hugged the reverend back.

Cleary had to guide him to the molded stairs on the other side of the pool. Two deacons were waiting to help Blair up and drape a towel around his shoulders. Blair realized then that he was crying, but no one else seemed to see anything unusual about that. He looked back at the baptismal pool once, just long enough to see the water was clear as it had ever been, and the only jungle overhead was the one in his mind. Then he stumbled away, wondering for the first time just what the heck he thought he was doing here.

    
****

3: cascade, washington (tuesday afternoon, late)   


"Towards the back," the guy behind the counter said. His grizzled hair was pulled back in a ponytail, a red bandana knotted around his brow. "You want to go through the first house where we've got the rhododendron, and straight back to the next house with the bedding plants. The herbs are in the very back, and I'm pretty certain we've still got some nice rosemary."

"Thanks, man. I appreciate it."

"Just watch that first step. Fatima likes to sleep there sometimes."

Blair had already pushed open the door to the first greenhouse, but he paused. "Fatima?" He looked down. Sunlight filtered through the slatted blinds over the west side of the greenhouses. Curled in a puddle of dappled light was a small-boned white cat. She blinked up at him, yawned and stretched one paw out luxuriously, then curled over on her other side and promptly went back to sleep.

"Fatima," Blair said. "Got it." He stepped over her carefully on the way down.

Rows of shrubbery stretched the length of the greenhouse. Massed above the dark green leaves were flowers in shades of pink and purple and red and white, thick as a fresh snowfall. Blair took a deep breath, smiling at the sight of them, but all he could smell was dirt and standing water and a faint, chemical sweetness he supposed was fertilizer or insecticide. The flowers themselves had no scent, and the bite of disappointment he felt at that was absurdly sharp. Oh man, he was in bad shape. Everything was way too intense right now. No wonder Jim had trouble with his senses when he was grieving or guilt-stricken. The entire world was painfully sharp-edged even to Blair's thoroughly ordinary senses this afternoon. The crunch of gravel underfoot made him want to walk on tiptoe. He could feel the tag in his shirt rubbing against vertebrae at the base of his neck, and there was a draft coming from somewhere, stirring hairs on the top of his head. He raised his eyes and saw the tremendous fans slowly rotating in the eaves.

Then he caught it. The faintest whisper, just a gauzy, iridescent ribbon of fragrance. It stopped him dead in his tracks. _What in the world?_ He remained frozen, afraid to take a step for fear of losing it, and carefully sniffed the humid air again. Ah, man, there it was. He took a deep breath. The smell was so pure, so rich and full Blair felt himself beginning to grin despite everything. What was that?

On both sides of him crowded three-foot high shrubs. The promised rhododendron, Blair assumed, their leaves thick and shiny and the undersides a fuzzy, coppery brown. On one side the plants were in full bloom with flowers so darkly red they were almost black. Pretty, in a slightly macabre way. Blair crouched down so he could bury his nose in one of the clusters of blossoms. From this distance he could detect a faint, earthy smell, but that wasn't the scent he was looking for.

The blossoms on the other side of the narrow gravel path weren't open yet. Blair sniffed at the tightly curled purple buds anyway. Nothing. He wished Jim were here to help him out with this, although maybe it was a good thing he wasn't. That scent was so intoxicating Jim might zone on it permanently.

Blair's smile faltered. And how could he blame Jim if he did? Stop and smell the roses for good, man. Blair could find no very good reason not to, and the way Jim had sounded on the phone this afternoon, Blair didn't think he would either.

* * *

"Ellison."

"Jim, hey man, glad I caught you. I'm through at school here, and I thought I'd come on down to the station."

"Get all your books all right?"

Blair glanced at the stack of shiny new texts teetering on his desk. "Got 'em. Jim, how did -- how did it go this afternoon? Any progress?"

"I've had better days." The pause went on too long. "We all have," he said at last. "Sandburg, don't bother to come in."

"No man, I want to. I told you I'm OK with this."

"Nobody's OK with this, but that's not what I meant. I'll be home in an hour or two. There's no need for you to come in."

"Are you sure?" Blair realized he was drumming his fingers on his desktop slightly frantically, and forced himself to stop. "No," he said, talking to himself as much as Jim. "No, I think I'll come on in anyway. I think that would be a better idea."

"You're not listening to me, Chief. I'm practically on my way home now. Finish whatever you need to do on campus and I'll see you back at the loft. I thought I'd stop at that barbecue place on the way home and pick up some ribs. That be OK with you?"

"Sure, whatever, sounds great, but why don't I just --"

"See you at seven, seven-thirty or eight at the latest," Jim said, and hung up phone.

"Damn you, Jim," Blair said, not meaning it at all, and put down the receiver too hard. He should be there. He should have been there all day. The emotional strain of this case might start to play havoc with Jim's senses, and Jim needed to be in control, absolutely one hundred percent. They had to find this monster and put him away right now. And Jim needed Blair so he could maintain his control and do that. Blair thought they had gotten that straightened out a long time ago, but sometimes Jim seemed to forget. Or chose to forget. _Stubborn, stiff-necked sonuvabitch_, Blair thought with an affection so profound it actually seemed to make his chest hurt.

He wrapped his arms around himself. It wasn't a one way street here, either. He needed Jim too. He'd spent all that time at the bookstore puzzling out what had gone wrong with last night's dinner so he wouldn't think about the blood splashed across the walls and floors and beds at 106 South Trace, but it wasn't working for him anymore. You know what was really bugging him now? Seeing how life was going on just like always. People standing in lines in the bookstore, at the registrar's office, at the bursar's, filling out forms, writing checks, trying to work out their schedules, acting for all the world like such things mattered in the grand, cruel scheme of things. And meanwhile, Dan Wolf was autopsying an eleven year old girl and her mother to determine -- god knew what. If either one had known what was coming? Could Dan tell that? Was there some secret forensic pathologist's test that could tell him whether Gwen had opened her eyes in time to see the stranger looming in her bedroom door? Whether she seen what he was holding in his hands? If she had felt the first blow?

Aw, Christ, there it went. Blair laid both arms on the desk in front of himself, his hands clenched into fists. He watched the veins pop out and felt his nails digging into his palms. His face was burning with heat, but there were no tears, just that appalling warmth. It felt like his brain was on fire.   
__

Jim, I know you think you're protecting me by keeping me at arm's length, but believe me, it doesn't work that way. I need you, man, because I'm having a real rough time keeping my head above water all alone.   


But Jim was on the other side of town, so Blair was just going to have to deal with things by himself. A couple of hours more, that was all. Play it Jim's way for a little while longer, and then that was it. From here on out, Jim wouldn't be able to pry Blair from his side with a crowbar, Blair was going to make certain of it.

He slowly relaxed his clenched fists. Then he took a long, deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out slowly, exhaling just as deeply, as though he could expel all the darkness with it. And again. And again. He felt his tensed muscles slowly letting go.

OK. He was better now. He took another long, deep breath. Two hours. Plenty of time to take care of business. The anthro department office was already closed, but he could stop at Kwick Kopy and pay to run off his syllabus. He still had forty bucks left over from the month's teaching stipend after buying his books, so that was no problem. And the library was open. He could go make sure his reserve books were on the shelves.

Good plan. He inhaled again, concentrating on the way it felt as his lungs expanded and his chest rose. He closed his eyes, willing there to be nothing else in the world but that comfortable fullness. Life at its simplest and most essential. Nothing else could touch him.

Except for his treacherous memory.

"One cup of detective-strength hot chocolate."

Jim had stayed so close to Gwen that whole afternoon, watching her with the pleased, almost proprietary air Blair knew so well. Blair, in turn, had been watching Jim. It felt good to share Jim's joy and relief, so good to see Jim smiling hard like that. Rescuing Gwen from Tom Gruenditch and his goons had struck one of those too-rare blows for goodness and decency. The guys in the white hats had carried the day for once.

But how short a day it had been.

Blair opened his eyes fast and made a thoughtless, violent gesture with his hands, sweeping those stupid, over-priced textbooks straight off his desk and spilling a mostly-full bottle of Evian in the process. Breathing hard, he sat and just watched the water pooling on his desk, soaking all his papers and files. Then he grabbed up his backpack and fled. Hadn't stopped at the library. Sure hadn't stopped at Kwick Kopy. His master copy of the syllabus was floating in a puddle of water in the middle of his desk anyway. He wanted to go the station, but he'd said he would give Jim his space, and he would, for another couple of hours at least.

So instead he was using the time to make sure Jim never had to contend with rotten rosemary in his linguine again. The deck got plenty of sunlight, and herbs were supposed to be tough and easy to grow, right? Right.

Whatever you've gotta do, man. Whatever it takes.

He couldn't smell that sweet scent anymore. He didn't realize why until the first tear ran down his cheek and bounced on one of the shiny green leaves.   
__

Aw, man. He was already bent over, but he knelt the rest of the way slowly, until he was crouched on the gravel path, trying to curl up into himself tight enough to shut out the rest of the universe. It didn't work. He wiped his nose with his sleeve and tried to smear away his tears with the palms of his hands. They just ran more freely than ever. C'mon, Jim_,_ he thought despairingly. Now look what you've gone and made me do.

He was startled by a soft little sound, and he looked up fast, wondering how he was going to explain squatting here and bawling his eyes out among the rhododendron. It was only Fatima strolling slowly down the path. The gravel turned under her soft white paws, and her blue eyes fixed on him, though when Blair looked up, she quickly turned aside and rubbed against a row of nursery pots.

Blair smiled a little, and gave up trying to wipe away the tears. "Sorry, Fatima," he whispered. "Guess I'm intruding on your turf here, aren't I?"

Her ears twitched at the sound of his voice, but she didn't look at him. Typical cat, Blair thought, and then he spotted the dappling of white back through the jungle of dark green leaves. He stood up and reached over as best he could. The plants had been misted recently and his blue jeans got soaked in the process, but at last he managed to snag the edge of the black plastic pot and lift it free.

It wasn't much to look at. The leaves were blue green and sparse on a spindly two-foot-tall trunk. The cluster of tiny white flowers Blair had spotted from the path were only blooming on one of the lower branches. He brought it up to his nose and sniffed as best he could. At this range, even with his running nose he could smell it. The fragrance filled his head and his mind, and though he wondered why he suddenly cared so much about something as unimportant as a good-smelling flower, he didn't try to argue himself out of it. Must be a stress reaction. One of those useful but slightly bizarre mechanisms for processing grief. He turned the pot in his hands, looking for the label. There it was. "Viburnum. Korean Spice."

Never heard of it. He wondered if it would grow all right in a pot on the balcony and clutched the pot to his chest, heedless of the dirt and moisture. He would ask Jerry Garcia up there by the cash register about it before he bought it.

Oh. Would the scent be too strong for Jim? He inhaled again, the sweetness making him feel dizzy with pleasure. No. Jim would love it, Blair was certain.

He felt a brush against his legs, and looked down to see Fatima curling her compact little white body around his ankles, rumbling possessively as she pressed her face against his jeans.

    
****

4: riverside, california (ten years ago)

 

"He asked me bluntly: 'Do you still want to study anthropology?' - 'Most certainly.' - 'Then apply for a post as a teacher of sociology at the University of Sao Paulo. The suburbs are full of Indians, whom you can study at the weekends.'"  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques _

 

"Curitiba?" Naomi asked thoughtfully. "Sweetie, where is Curitiba?"

Blair shifted the phone to his other ear. "It's the capital of Parana."

"Parana, Brazil?"

"Right."

Naomi sounded very, very patient. Always a bad sign. "I've never been there. Rio a few times, and Sao Paulo during the student demonstrations in '74. How old would you have been then, six?" She laughed. "You were impossible after we came back to the states and I couldn't find sugarcane for you anymore."

"Oh man, that was Rio? Somehow I'd thought that was in Trinidad. So I guess I've been to Brazil before after all."

Naomi stopped laughing. "You know I support whatever you want to do," she said seriously.

Blair groaned to himself. "Mom --"

"But I thought you were going to spend the summer in Seattle working for that law firm."

"Come on, you hated the idea of me working for that firm, I know you did."

"Honey, that's simply not true. Before you went any further with this plan of yours to study environmental law, I thought it was very important that you spend a little time seeing what actually goes on in a law firm."

"Oh, I get it. You thought I would hate it so much I would drop the whole idea?"

"I think I'm hearing some issues here."

"No issues, Mom. Just letting you know my summer plans have changed, that's all."

One of Blair's roommates stopped by the open bedroom door and stuck his head in. Joey was a year older than Blair and a foot taller, with short-cropped blonde hair and an aggressive suntan. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a cross and fish over his chest and a legend on the back that warned, "He who dies with the most toys wins NOTHING." He stage-whispered to Blair, "Everything OK? You tell her yet?"

"Not yet," Blair said. "Just getting to it."

"Just getting to what?" Naomi asked.

"You take it easy. It'll be OK," Joey said. He crossed to the bed where Blair was sitting and caught him in an awkward hug, smashing Blair's face against a chest like a brick wall. He released him and thumped him on the back. "I'll be praying for you."

"Thanks, man," Blair said. "Have a good time at the movies."

"Sure you don't wanna go? We could wait for you if you wanted to come with us."

"No, it's OK. You go ahead."

"Hey, another time," Joey said, and gave Blair a thumbs up on his way out the door.

"Sorry about that," Blair told Naomi. "Joey was just leaving."

"Well, I know you'll have a lovely time this summer," Naomi said. "I love Brazil. I am wondering a little bit about school in the fall. I'm glad to help you out, you know that, but we were thinking you would be able to earn enough to help pay your living expenses. If you're going to be sight-seeing in Brazil all summer --"

"Well, a couple of things, Mom. I don't think I'm going to be starting school in the fall after all."

There was a long, long pause. Blair was determined not to give in, but he never could hold his tongue. "Mom," he finally said, "You were right about environmental law. That's totally not for me. So there's not really any point in me starting at UC Irvine in the fall like I'd been thinking, is there?"

"Have you thought this through?" Naomi said, very quietly.

"Oh, come on, Mom. You were the one who kept telling me to take a year off after high school, to be sure what I really wanted to do."

"And what you want to do is go to Brazil? It's just so unexpected! You never said a word about wanting to travel before. Honey, you always fussed at me when we moved."

"Well, it's a little different now that I'm not in high school anymore," Blair said patiently. No point getting into that argument again. "You remember, Mom, tenth and eleventh grade? While we were still living in Cascade and I got to take those classes at Rainier? My advisor was this guy in the anthro department, Dr. Buckner. I made such a nuisance of myself he finally gave in and let me sit in on a couple of his upper level anthro classes. His field of specialization was the Ge language group people of the Amazon."

"I'm not sure I'm following this, honey. Are you going to Brazil with Dr. Buckner?"

"Not with Buckner. But my roommate Joey goes to this big evangelical church in Fullerton, and they've got a mission in a Tibagy village a few miles out of Curitiba. Every summer they send some teenagers from the church down there, like to do manual labor and stuff. I think we'll be building a new wing on the clinic. Anyway, Joey's going, and I've been listening to him talk about it for a while, and it hit me that this would be the perfect opportunity to see what Buckner's been talking about first hand. Sounds great, doesn't it?"

Another long pause. When Naomi finally spoke, her tone was very cautious. "So, sweetie, you're going to Brazil with a group of missionaries?"

"They're even paying my way! Cool, isn't it?"

"If you're happy, I'm happy, you know that."

Blair heard that tone in Naomi's voice. "Mom, what's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter! Honestly! I am wondering though --"

"What? What are you wondering about?"

"I don't mean to sound prejudiced, but they ARE missionaries, sweet. I would have thought for missionaries in the field they would want people to -- well, you know -- spread the faith."

"No, you're right. I had to join the church. I even got baptized today. Pretty wild, huh?"

Dead silence. This time Blair was determined not to be the one to break it. Naomi's letting this go, he thought to himself. Fine. Let it go first, then we can talk.

But in the silence, he remembered those endless moments underwater during his baptism, the sudden, sickening fear that he was screwing around with things he didn't begin to understand, and the faint, faint possibility there might be something to consider in this world other than Blair Sandburg's future plans.

"Look," he burst out all at once, arguing with Naomi as well as himself. "There's nothing to be upset about. This works out great for everybody. I get to go to Brazil and live in a Tigaby village this summer, and Joey and the whole congregation think they've saved a poor little Jewish kid's immortal soul. And oh, man, they loved my stories about those years you were on the lecture circuit with Tom Hayden. You don't know how tough it was for me not to throw in something about pillars of salt."

"Blair, baby, you sound so cynical! It's breaking my heart."

"Cynical? No, that's not it at all. See, this is what an anthropologist does. He fits in with the group he's there to study. He gets along."

"He lies?" Naomi interrupted.

"Mom, it's not lying exactly."

"Maybe you should reconsider law school," Naomi said. "You sound like an attorney already."

    
****

5: cascade, washington (tuesday afternoon, late)   


Afterward, Blair would remember his hold on the ordinary world had really begun to slip the night before, in the upstairs hallway of the abattoir that had once been Gwen Angelone's home. But at the time, crunching along the gravel path to the second greenhouse to find a rosemary plant for Jim, the viburnum clutched in his arms and Fatima walking before him with the tip of her skinny white tail held straight as a flagpole, he simply hadn't known the descent had already begun.

* * *

The master bedroom was at the other end of the hall from Gwen's room, and the nightmare had come creeping over Blair as he walked the length of the hall with Jim. At first Blair thought it was only shock, nothing but the predictable physiological response to horror. His heartbeat was a little fast. He could hear the roaring in his ears and felt like he had a brick in his stomach. He was flushed and breathing too hard and probably on the verge of hyperventilating too, so it was no wonder things seemed a little strange. The best thing to do was just try to calm down so his own reactions didn't distract Jim.

He tried. With every step, he tried.

The problem was, there were just too many damn steps. The hallway should not have been that long. And there certainly shouldn't have been anything behind them, but there was. Something moving steadily closer, stalking them, and taking no particular care to be quiet about it either. Blair heard their pursuer howling in the furthest reaches of his own mind, and he wanted to grab Jim's arm and RUN, but his limbs refused to obey him. He did nothing but continue plodding along steady and slow, while the dark thing baying on their trail drew closer with every step. "Jim!" he knew he should be screaming, "Jim, we've got to go. We've got to go _now._ "

But he didn't say a word. They walked on and on down the hall with the pinstriped wallpaper and the pristine white paint, toward a bedroom door that never got any closer, and after a very, very long time, Jim touched his back and asked quietly, "Do you want to wait downstairs?"

How could he answer that? "Jim, it's going to catch us if we don't start running NOW"?

Instead, Blair heard himself saying, just as quietly, "No, man, I want to stay with you." And that was all right, because that was true. Even lost in nightmare as he was, the warmth of Jim's palm at the small of his back centered and calmed him.

Then Simon came to the bedroom door. "Jim," he said. As though the sound of his voice had broken the spell, the endless hallway contracted like a stretched spring snapping back. Suddenly Blair was standing right at the bedroom door, close enough for Simon to reach out and pat him clumsily on the shoulder. "You doing OK there, Sandburg?"

Blair cleared his throat. "Yeah." He risked a glance back over his shoulder. There was absolutely no one there but the patrolman standing at the head of the stairs, looking carefully into nothingness, and the upstairs hallway itself was just an ordinary upstairs hall in an ostentatious suburban home. Blair turned back.

Simon was as shaken and dull-eyed as every other officer on the scene. He was chewing on an unlit cigar, his shirt untucked and the buttons not lined up. An extra button hole gaped empty at his throat. "Right," he said, and that was a non sequitur if ever Blair had heard one, because obviously nothing was all right. He stepped aside so Jim could enter the master bedroom, and this time, Blair went with him.

Trish Angelone lay on her back in the middle of the bed, wearing white cotton pajamas with pink satin piping. One arm was flung out, her hand palm up. The corner of the bedspread had been pulled up to cover her face.

Jim turned angrily to Simon. "Who was first on the scene?"

"Yolen," Simon said. He called down the hall. "Officer! Can you come up here a moment?"

Blair looked at the scene in the master bedroom far longer than he wanted to. Penance for not being able to go into Gwen's room, and then for nearly losing it in the hall just now anyway. There was a dirty red spray across the pillows, the shams, the duvet, the headboard, the night table, the carpeted floor, and the rose pink walls. The top dresser drawer had been pulled out, and a froth of silk and lace spilled over the top. A salmon-colored slip was crumpled on the floor. The garden fork and the spade had been left at the foot of the bed. Both tools had a shiny Martha Stewart look to them, as though they had been bought to complement a new garden bench, not with any expectation of use. Probably never had been used, Blair thought.

Well, except for this one time.

He must have made a sound, or maybe Jim simply felt him flinch. At any rate, Jim's hand rested on his shoulder for a moment then, steadying him.

Officer Yolen had come to the bedroom door. "Detective?" he said, and Blair turned to see him as well, noticing how white the young patrolman was under his freckles, and the way he kept his eyes fixed in the near distance, carefully not looking toward the body on the bed.

"I understand you found the victims?" Jim asked.

"Yessir." His gaze remained fixed.

"You'd gotten a call?"

"The next door neighbors called the dispatcher, that's right. When I arrived on the scene I saw the back patio doors standing wide open, and I came in to investigate. That's when I found them." He swallowed.

Jim nodded. "Your first multiple homicide, officer?"

A quick, miserable smile. "Well, no sir. But I've never seen anything like this."

"And God willing, none of us will ever see anything like it again," Simon put in.

"Do you know why the neighbors called the police?" Jim pressed.

"My understanding is that the husband -- Mr. Angelone -- he left this afternoon on a business trip, tried to call home in the early evening, and got concerned when nobody answered the phone. So he called the next door neighbors and asked them to investigate. The neighbors called the police. I haven't spoken to them personally, sir, so I don't know what spooked them. Maybe they saw the open patio doors like I did, but I just don't know."

"I spoke to them briefly when I arrived," Simon said. "The name is Ottinger. They understand you'll want to talk to them as well, Jim."

"Oh my god," Blair heard himself blurting out. "You mean Fred -- Mr. Angelone -- you mean he doesn't even know what's happened yet?"

"We're trying to contact him now." Simon's voice was gentle.

And tell him what? Blair thought, a little hysterically. "Hello, Mr. Angelone. Your friends at the Cascade PD here, calling to let you know your wife and daughter were sloppily murdered with garden tools while you were away on a business trip. Bad luck really seems to follow your family around, doesn't it? Not that you've got a family to worry about anymore."

Jim's voice was stern, but Blair didn't have to look at him to know he was regarding Officer Yolen with compassion. "How long were you in the bedroom before you called for backup?"

"Here? Not even a minute, detective. I don't think it was even that long. I'd already found the little girl and --" He broke off. "Anyway, all I had to do was shine my flashlight in here to see that it was the same thing."

"You didn't cover the victim's face?"

"No sir! I didn't touch anything. Absolutely not."

"All right. Thank you, officer."

So her murderer had covered Trish's face, Blair thought. Hacked the life from her, then pulled the covers over her dead eyes before rifling through her underwear drawer.

Blair wrapped his arms around his own shoulders as he started to shake. He knew it was only his imagination acting up again, but it seemed, just then, as though an icy cold wind had come whistling in from the hallway.

* * *

There was a cold breeze in the second greenhouse. Weird, Blair thought dimly, though he was trying hard not to concentrate on anything but the achingly sweet scent of the viburnum. You'd think they would keep a greenhouse a little warmer.

The colors were brighter here than in the rhododendron house. Dozens upon dozens of gaudy geraniums, rows and rows of caladiums and coleus. Blair ignored them and headed for the island of dark green at the very back, Fatima proceeding him the entire way.

There was only half a table of herbs, tiny cuttings rooted in two-inch black plastic pots. Tarragon, globe, cinnamon and lemon basils, pineapple sage, chocolate mint and curly-leaf parsley, all jumbled together and identified with pencil-written labels scrawled on little plastic stakes. No sign of rosemary, though.

Blair put the viburnum down on the gravel path so he could look more carefully. They had to have rosemary. They had to. He sorted through the little pots one by one, reading each label even though he was fairly confident of his ability to recognize rosemary when he saw it. Mingled scents rose as his hands brushed the fragrant leaves. For a moment the cold wind in the greenhouse took the scent of the viburnum away from him, and he looked down quickly, as though the little shrub might have disappeared. But no, of course it was right there at his feet. Fatima sat beside the nursery pot, carefully licking the curled toes on her left front paw and then cleaning the back of her ear.

But no rosemary, dammit. What kind of a half-assed operation was this anyway, they didn't even have rosemary? For an absurd moment, Blair felt tears of disappointment stinging his eyes. Oh for heaven's sake, Sandburg. Buck up, would you? You'd think this was the only nursery in Cascade. He took a sniffling breath and wiped his eyes. It was time to get back to the loft. Tonight of all nights he wanted to be sure he was home for Jim. And it was OK. He'd try somewhere else when he had time. After all, it wasn't like having a rosemary plant right now, tonight, would really do anyone any good. Not like a stupid rosemary plant could bring Gwen to life again, or give Jim back whatever hope for decency and goodness the investigation of this crime had stolen from him.

Blair picked up the viburnum and found its scent even sweeter after the sharp, culinary smell of the herbs. He turned, having to take an awkward half-step to avoid tripping over Fatima, and spotted the rosemary at last.

Oh, damn. This was almost worse than not finding any at all.

There were half a dozen rosemary plants in tall white clay pots on the table across the aisle. The plants themselves had been pruned into miniature topiary, foot-tall trees with their fragile trunks supported by tiny bamboo stakes. Graceful and formal and very expensive, Blair had no doubt. He shifted the viburnum to one arm and looked at the tag on one anyway just to confirm his guess. $32.50. Aw, man, wouldn't you know it? Wouldn't you just know it? Every other herb back here was selling for a buck and a half.

That reminded him he hadn't bothered to look at the price on his viburnum either. He had been so set on simply having it no matter what, he'd snatched it up without a thought.

With a miserable sense that he knew exactly how this was going to end, he set the viburnum down beside the rosemary and began hunting for some indication of price. There it was, written on the back of the horticulture tag. $39.99 for this scraggly little shrub with one branch of flowers blooming low down on the trunk and corrugated leaves already beginning to show brown edges. He didn't even know if he could grow it in a pot on the balcony anyway. Didn't know, for that matter, if Jim would even be able to tolerate such a powerful smell, no matter how wonderful Blair thought it was.

Blair crossed his arms over his chest and turned his back on the entire table of plants. Actually, you know, Jim would probably like the little rosemary tree. He could see where the formality and discipline of its culture would appeal to the man's sense of order. And it would look great on the balcony. Very Mediterranean. Besides, he'd come here for Jim in the first place, hadn't he? So it really wasn't a difficult decision at all.

Blair took a deep breath, filling his head for the last time with that intoxicating fragrance, and closed his eyes to shut out as much of the rest of the world as he could. Then he let his breath out just as slowly, and when he opened his eyes, he saw Jim standing behind the slatted wooden table on the other side of the aisle.

"Jim?" It didn't even occur to him to wonder how Jim had found him here. "What's up? Is something wrong?"

Jim didn't answer.

"Is it the case? Has something happened? Talk to me, man." Trying to take a step toward him, Blair tripped over the cat at his feet. Fatima yowled and bounded away as Blair crashed into the flats on the other side of the aisle, skinning his hands on the wooden slats and knocking over dozens of the lightweight herb pots. He pushed himself away from the table with a groan. "Geez, Jim, if it's not --"

He broke off with a groan, feeling as though the breath had been crushed from his lungs.

Jim was nowhere to be seen. Blair was alone in the greenhouse.

    
****

6: sao jeronymo reserve, parana, brazil (ten years ago)

 

"Journeys, those magic caskets full of dreamlike promises, will never again yield up their treasures untarnished."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques _

 

Blair awoke in a corncrib from a night of languorous dreams.

He took a deep breath, then twisted and stretched with a happy groan. The dry cobs shifted and slipped around him, smelling as sweet as mown hay.

He was cold, he realized a moment later, and the blanket he lay under was wet with dew. The tip of his tongue and the roof of his mouth were painfully tender where he had scalded himself over and over again last night. None of it damped his spirits in the least. He raised his eyes and looked past twin bamboo posts and a low, palm-thatched roof to the field where cattle stood dreaming in the shadow of the encroaching forest.

He was _here, _he thought to himself. He was actually here. Not six weeks ago he'd been just another kid right out of high school, no prospects brighter than a summer job and college in the fall, and man oh man, look at him now.

He reached one hand out from under his blanket, groping for his backpack. When he finally snagged it, he pulled it over so he could retrieve last night's treasure. He had to dig around for a minute, but he finally found the little bundle tucked carefully into a side pocket and wrapped up in a bandanna. He folded back the cloth slowly, making himself wait, at last revealing the tiny wax figure of a crouching man, decorated with black and white beads and a twist of wool. As he turned the little totem in his hand, a few happy tears began to trickle down his cheeks. He wiped them away irritably, but it didn't change the way he felt.

You know what it was like? It was almost like he'd never been really alive before. He'd watched life with interest, but never felt truly involved before. Not like Naomi was. He had admired his mother's fervor for as long as he could remember, long before he had been able to understand what her commitment and ideals really meant. The belief and involvement, all her work and sacrifice, marches and demonstrations, fund-raisers, lobbying efforts, all the planning and all the paperwork, the sheer amount of time. He admired her so much, he really did. But deep down, he couldn't help but wonder sometimes if he would ever find something that mattered as much to him.

And now he had.

He dropped a kiss on the misshapen head of the little figure, then laughed at himself for being childish, even as he hugged his treasure to his chest.

Then he caught a shadow of movement from the corner of his eye, and looked up just in time to see a cloaked, cowled figure emerge from the forest road. Blair closed his eyes for a moment, shaking his head, then looked again. A mist was rising, shot through with the thin light of early dawn. The hooded man came across the field so silently not even the cattle marked his passing, and for a giddy moment it seemed to Blair his own journey across continents might have taken him through the centuries as well. Dressed in the robes of one of the traditional orders, the man could have been one of the Catholic missionaries who had walked this countryside half a millennia ago.

Blair sat up, shivering a little, and pushed the blanket aside. For the first time he caught the smell of food drifting from the dwelling on the other side of the lean-to. Fried corn, smoked meat, coffee. Blair got to his feet, and when the stranger was close enough to speak without raising his voice, he pushed back his hood to reveal his face. "Well," he said in English, "You must be Mr. Sandburg."

"Uh, that's right. Blair." His voice was scratchy from sleep and bewilderment. "You know me?"

"Only by reputation. When I left the village this morning, one of those earnest young men from the Baptist mission told me if I saw you, I was to tell you to get your butt back to town before they called the police on you."

He smiled, and Blair could see his face was badly bruised. There were dark blue smears around his nose and under his eyes, as though from recent surgery. Plastic surgery? A monk? _Yeah, right, Sandburg. _Maybe he'd been in a car accident or something. "I told him that in this part of Parana," the stranger went on, "He had better think twice about calling the police. Young Americans are not very popular here these days."

"You mean because of the land reform movement? I know things are really tricky where the indigenous peoples are starting to organize. I bet the military police don't draw much distinction between missionaries and land reform advocates."

"You're better informed than the rest of your young friends. Their main concern seems to be whether you'll get back in time to teach the bible study this morning."

Blair made a dismissive gesture, pushing the idea away from him. "I'm here to help build a new wing on the clinic, but no way am I going to tell bible stories to Tigaby kids. They should be learning about their own culture, not having an alien one forced on them."

The other's smile broadened. "That's certainly a curious attitude for a missionary. Besides, young man, your brand of evangelical Protestantism may be a recent development, but Christianity has been in this part of the world for five hundred years now. It's hardly 'alien.'"

"Oh, hey, yeah, I know that," Blair said quickly. "I didn't mean any disrespect."

"That's all right. I forgive you." He grinned at Blair, waiting a beat, then said "Of course, I have to."

Blair rolled his eyes and laughed. "Right."

"So, what are you doing sleeping in my friend Orinoco's corncrib?"

"I met him at the clinic yesterday. He invited me to walk out and meet the rest of his family." Blair shrugged. "OK, so maybe I invited myself, sort of. He said he'd teach me how to drink maté."

"And did you learn?"

"Well, by the time I started to get the hang of it, my mouth was too burned to taste it anymore."

The man laughed, and Blair grinned. Suddenly he wanted to share the joy of his discovery with someone --anyone -- and right now this laughing monk seemed as good a candidate as any. He opened his palm and held up the little figure. "But this was the best part. I bargained with Orinoco's granddaughter for it. It took most of the afternoon, and a good part of the evening, but she finally let me have it."

"Ah, let me see," the monk said, taking the figure and examining it carefully. "And what did you give her for this prize?"

"She drove a hard bargain," Blair admitted. "Basically, she got my camera, my watch, my 'Stop Making Sense' T-shirt, and twenty-five dollars in American money. It was all I had."

The monk put his head back and roared. "That little girl can't be more than seven years old! And to think I was about to accuse you of stealing toys from babies."

Blair shrugged, grinning.

"My dear boy," he said at last, wiping tears of laugher from his eyes. "Her mother will make her another one in half an hour. What on earth possessed you to give so much for this?"

I recognized it," Blair said, taking back the figure. "It's a religious statue. This is 'The Little Old Man' from Ge mythology -- a god who came down from heaven and walked on earth, but mankind blew it. They didn't realize who he was until it was too late."

"Always the way, isn't it?"

Blair grinned. "Yeah, I guess. Anyway, I could tell who he was because of the way he's all crouched over, you see? And the way his head's too large, and the beads here around his neck and stomach. The Ge peoples have been telling this story for at least five hundred years that we know of --"

"And we know about it because the first Catholic missionaries collected and wrote the story down, is that right?"

Blair just nodded, too excited to stop and grant the monk his point. "Anyway, who knows how much older the story is than that? A thousand years? Five thousand? Oh man!" Blair's hand tightened around his prize. "When I saw that little girl playing with this proof of a culture's survival through so many thousands of years -- I don't know man, I'm not telling this right. But it was mind bending. The whole world kind of shifting a little. if you know what I mean. I guess it was sort of a religious experience."

The monk smiled gently. "Yes, that I do understand."

Blair broke off, faintly embarrassed. "Yeah, I guess you would."

"But doesn't it strike you as sad?" the monk said, taking the figure back from Blair and examining it again. "A santo of such ancient and profound importance -- now nothing but a child's plaything. Their culture may have survived in some form, but it's surely dying now, if it's come to this."

"No," Blair said eagerly. "No, I don't think so. See, here's what I think it is. God is right here for them, always, so there's no need to compartmentalize him and shut religious observances off from ordinary life. No reason a religious totem can't be a child's toy too. So it doesn't mean the culture's dying --I think it means it's totally alive."

"Quite the anthropologist, aren't you?"

"No," Blair said honestly. "Maybe some day, though."

The monk handed Blair back the figure. "Pack up your treasure and come have breakfast. Then you're going back to the village where you belong. I was serious. It's not safe for young Americans to be wandering around alone these days."

"You are," Blair pointed out.

The monk opened his hands, shrugging. "I am not a young man. Besides, I'm only here to help repair the rose window in the Holy Virgin Chapel in Curitiba. Then I'm going home. My traveling days will soon be over for good."

"Where's home?"

"Inquisitive about everything, aren't you?"

"Kind of, I guess. Sorry. Don't mean to be rude."

"No, I'm the one who's forgotten my manners. Unforgivable, especially when it's been such a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He took Blair's hand and shook it firmly. "Marcus of St. Sebastian's, at your service."

    
****

7: cascade, washington (10:45 tuesday evening)

Jim should have been tired. He'd been awake since three this morning, pushing himself hard the whole way, but he didn't feel tired. What he felt instead was an angry, energetic buzz, relentless and enraged, like a hornet's nest thrumming low in his belly. As long as it buzzed, he didn't need rest, or food, or sleep. He didn't need anything but anger, and god knows, he had that in spades tonight.

He let himself in the front door, registering Blair's presence without having to look toward the sofa. Everything was different when Sandburg was in the loft, and it wasn't just the didgeridoo moaning on the CD player like a high tension wire in a windstorm or the hot, penetrating scent of herbal tea steeping in a teapot on the kitchen counter.

Carolyn's teapot, come to think of it. Jim had always meant to give it back to her, but in the three years since Blair had moved in, the lid had gotten lost and the spout chipped in two places, so there was no way to pour a cup without dribbling tea all over everything. If Carolyn ever asked for it back, Jim supposed he would just have to buy her a new one.

Blair's backpack was on the floor under the coat rack, and his shoes lay a short distance away, along with one balled up sock. The heat was on even though it was sixty degrees outside. Jim didn't need any of that to know Blair was home. It was something softer than the beating of his heart, more subtle than his scent. His mere presence affected everything around him as indefinably and unmistakably as a change in air pressure, the entire world shifting just enough to accommodate the proximity of one Blair Sandburg.

Maybe not the whole world. Maybe just Jim's world.

Because the angry buzz in his gut began to quiet even before Blair lifted his head from the book he was reading and quietly said, "Hey, Jim."

"Chief," Jim said. He backpedaled and turned, heading for the kitchen even though he wasn't hungry or thirsty, but just because he wanted to hold on to that energetic anger.

Blair wouldn't let him, of course. He heard Sandburg's soft footsteps, bare feet on the wooden floor. Blair turned off the stereo, turned down the thermostat, and then followed Jim into the kitchen. "You're pretty late," he observed mildly. "Something happen on the case?"

"No progress," Jim said shortly. He opened the fridge, didn't see anything he wanted, shut it again and turned to face Blair. "You get everything done at school you needed to?"

Blair smiled, but the expression was a little distant and sad. "Pretty much," he said. "Yeah."

"Good," Jim said, and made an effort to push past him out of the kitchen. He was losing already, his anger shifting into grief, the attendant energy dissipating into the air.

"You've had a really long day," Blair observed, not moving out of his way, trapping Jim in the kitchen. "Did you get any dinner?"

No, he hadn't had dinner. The hornet's nest had filled his belly and left no desire for food. But it wasn't there anymore. He could remember the way it had felt, but he wasn't feeling it now, was he? Especially once Blair hit his shoulder affectionately, trying to get his attention. "I said, you hungry? Did you eat?"

God, he was starving, and so miserably tired. He sagged against the kitchen counter. "I didn't get a chance to even think about dinner. A tip came in right after I talked to you this afternoon -- an inmate in the county lockup claiming he had information about the killing."

"Oh man," Blair said softly. "So it was Gruenditch's people after all, wasn't it? Did you get anything?"

Jim dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. "No. He tried to finger Gruenditch's old organization, but he didn't have anything. Turns out he's due to be transferred to the state pen. He'd heard the news through the grapevine and was just looking for a way out. Waste of everybody's time."

"Especially yours, looks like." Blair took Jim's arm and tugged. "C'mon. Come sit down, take a load off. I'll see if I can find us something for dinner."

Jim allowed himself to be pulled into the living room. "'Us?' Why haven't you eaten yet?"

Blair pushed him down on the sofa, grinning at him. "Because I was waiting for those ribs you promised to bring home for dinner, you jerk."

Jim shut his eyes. "Damn, I'm sorry. It slipped my mind." He tried to get up. "I'll drive back out there. Can you wait that long?"

"Knock it off." Bending over Jim, Blair put a hand on his shoulder again to keep him from standing. "The barbecue place must have closed hours ago. I'll make some grilled cheese sandwiches or something."

"OK," Jim agreed quietly, too tired to fight. "Ribs another night."

"I'll hold you to that," Blair told him, still smiling, his hand still firm on Jim's shoulder. "I think we've got some sundried tomato paste and feta cheese for sandwiches. How does that sound?"

Jim thought about saying now he _really _was sorry he had forgotten to stop for barbecue, but he just didn't have the heart for it tonight. He only nodded. "Thank you."

"No problem, man. Gourmet cheese sandwiches coming right up."

An entire world suddenly brushed by as Blair straightened up and lifted his hand from Jim's shoulder. It was so complete and overwhelming it took Jim a moment to realize the sensation had been triggered by a scent clinging to Blair's hands. No, not one scent, dozens. Like a soapbubble they coalesced for an instant, dazzling and complete, and then Blair's hand dropped, and the fragile sphere shattered.

"Jim?"

Jim grabbed Blair's hand back and brought it up to his face, sniffing the back of his hand, then turning it over to inhale deeply from his palm as well. Blair laughed softly. "Uh, Jim?"

"Where the hell have you been? Smells like --" He wasn't sure what it smelled like. There were traces of familiarity, but the scents clinging to Blair and mingling with each other confused him and he couldn't separate them. He was reminded distantly of cooking, but the smells were more raw than that, and there was a sweet undercurrent he couldn't identify at all.

"Wow," Blair was still laughing. "Sorry about that. I stopped at a nursery after work. You must be smelling the herbs and flowers and stuff."

"Oh." That would explain it. "What were you doing at a nursery? I thought you had all sorts of work to do at school."

Blair scowled. "I got my books, OK, Dad? Then I stopped on the way home and got this so we'd always have fresh rosemary around." Blair walked out to the balcony and returned with a neatly pruned plant in a tall pot that he set on the coffee table in front of Jim. Jim leaned forward and brushed it with his fingertips as Blair was saying, "It likes sunlight, so I think it ought to do OK on the balcony. Kind of pretty, isn't it?"

"Dinner last night," Jim said as the fragrance rose, blotting out the subtler scents on Blair's hands. "So you noticed."

"Yeah, I noticed. Sorry about that. You should have just told me it was putrid instead of trying to eat it."

"I wouldn't have called it putrid." He caught Blair's eye. "All right," he admitted. "It was pretty bad."

Blair was still grinning, but the longer Jim watched him, the more clearly he could see what was beneath the smile. Dammit, he thought, not for the first time. He shouldn't have let Blair come along this time. The case was bad enough for seasoned cops. Even Simon had been stone faced and shaky all day, and Jim knew why he had gone to pick up Darryl after school himself this afternoon, even with the mayor and the chief calling the office every half hour demanding the break that hadn't come yet.

A case like this made you want to reach out and hold on to your family, the people you loved. Hold on hard and not let go.

***

Fred Angelone had gotten home at five fifteen in the morning, just as the stars were beginning to disappear. Blair had stuck close all night, and he was near Jim now, hanging back a little to be out of the way. The patrolman had been showing Jim the open patio doors in back. The garden shed was nearby, and it was no mystery where the murder weapons had come from. The shed doors were standing open as well, exposing the shiny garden tools hanging neatly from a pegboard. There were two empty hooks. The garden tools left behind all had the same thick waxed ash handles as the spade and fork lying upstairs on Trish Angelone's bed.

Jim stopped, then, hearing the engine. "Car's coming."

"Oh man," Blair said, almost to himself. "Is it Mr. Angelone? "

Jim started moving again, long strides to the narrow walk along the garage back to the front of the house. The part of his mind that took in everything in moments like this saw the boxwood hedges, the spiraling topiary conifers, thick cedarwood mulch, neatly piled and very fresh. Those shiny garden tools hadn't been used to do any of this landscaping. Blue and red lights still flashed on the street in front of the house. Neighbors all along the cul-de-sac were standing in their driveways, watching. Simon was on the front porch next door, talking to the neighbors who had called the police in the first place. The Ottingers. A gray Mercedes was pulling slowly up the street, its headlights illuminating all the pale, eager, frightened faces in turn.

"Jim," Simon called. He said something briefly to the neighbor, then hurried back, his strides as long as Jim's, up the neighboring drive, along the street, meeting Jim in the Angelone's driveway. The Mercedes had slowed to a crawl. "Jim," Simon said again. "That's him. Do you want to --?"

Jim was watching the car. The headlights blinded him and he couldn't see the driver's face. "I'll do it. He knows Sandburg and me."

And there was Blair, so close that if Jim were to turn unexpectedly he'd probably trip over him. He reached out, grasped Sandburg's upper arm for a moment, looked into those wide open eyes. Almost blank with shock and sorrow. What the hell was he doing here? Jim thought furiously.

(Her face shattered like china, one blue-green eye gazing calmly out of the wreckage.)

"If you're not gonna be able to handle this, I need to know right now, Chief," he said, the words low and fast. Blair's face turned away from Jim's just for an instant, tracking the car. There wasn't room for Mr. Angelone to park in his own driveway, so he pulled to the curb. The headlights went out.

Blair met Jim's eyes again. "I can handle it." His voice was very steady.

"He's a suspect," Jim snapped. "You understand that?"

"I know," Blair said, telling Jim what he must have known Jim wanted to hear. "Because he's immediate family. Jim, I understand." The assurance meant nothing to Jim. Blair would have said anything, done anything, just to be sure he stayed at Jim's side.

He released Blair and turned back as the car door opened and Fred Angelone got out. Jim catalogued the dress slacks, the wrinkled white shirt. "I live here," he said, in a lost voice. He already knew what it was like, Jim thought distantly. First the tragedy, then the humiliation of losing your home to strangers.

"Mr. Angelone," Jim said, and brushed his hand over the hood of the car as he approached the man to see how hot the engine was. "Jim Ellison. We've met before."

"I know. I remember. Nice to --" The automatic response only got him so far. He looked at the house, then back to Jim. "What's going on?"

"I'm sorry," Jim told him. "Gwen and Trish are dead."

He staggered. Blair was at his side instantly, taking his arm. "Easy," Blair said. "Do you need to sit down? If you feel like you're gonna faint --"

Fred didn't even seem to notice he was there. "Dead? I don't understand." He shook his head slowly. "Was it the gas?" A sound that was horribly like a giggle escaped him. "Never did trust those gas logs Trish wanted."

"They were murdered," Jim told him.

"You mean Gwen too? Is Gwen dead too?"

"Your wife and daughter are both dead." Jim couldn't look at Blair even though he was so close, supporting Fred's weight as the man swayed on his feet. If he did, everything would rush in on him at once, and he couldn't allow it. Not now, not this instant, when everything depended on watching the expressions that crossed Fred Angelone's face.

He was a cop right now, not a Sentinel.   
__

I'm sorry, Chief.   


"Did they suffer?" Fred asked, his voice flat and dull.

"There were signs of violence at the scene."

"Oh my god. Who would -- just a little girl. Why would anyone --" He tore away from Blair, trying to push past Jim as well. "I want to see them."

"I'm sorry." Jim stopped him easily. "That's not possible."

"Take your hands off me. Goddamn you, Ellison!" He struggled fiercely for an instant. Jim heard Simon and one of the uniforms approaching fast, but the fight went out of Angelone almost at once. He sagged in Jim's arms, weeping in noisy, gasping sobs. Jim looked up and saw Blair watching it all, blue eyes wide, imprinted with so many horrors tonight.

Something inside Jim broke at the sight as well. The sensations that rushed through him so hot and fast were almost unendurable. The smells were the worst, because the blood permeated everything. Blood and fresh cedarwood mulch. Blood and Fred Angelone's aftershave. Blood and earth and asphalt, blood and the unstoppered bottle of lavender bath salts in the upstairs bedroom in that blood-soaked house, blood and Blair Sandburg.

Jim dragged Fred Angelone up, forcing him to keep his feet. Simon was close enough now to take an arm and help support him as well. "Mr. Angelone," he said. "Simon Banks. I want you to come with me now. Mrs. Ottinger said she'd be glad to make you a cup of tea, so we're gonna go next door and get out of the street, all right?"

Fred looked at Simon as though he were speaking another language. Then his head swung back to look at Jim again. "It's those people who kidnapped Gwen. You killed their boss. That's why. Oh god, that's why, isn't it? Who else would want to hurt an innocent little girl?"

"We're looking into all the possibilities," Simon assured him. "But it's too early to jump to any conclusions."

"You're the one who killed Gruenditch. Why didn't they come after your family?" Fred reached out, knotting his fist in the front of Jim's shirt. "I didn't want anybody to get hurt. I didn't care about the money. You're the one who shot him. I didn't have anything to do with it. Gwen didn't have anything to do with it. My baby was just a little girl. Why didn't anyone warn us? Why did you let this happen?" His voice was rising into hysteria. "I want an answer, detective. I think I deserve an answer." And then Angelone was weeping too violently to get the words out anymore. Simon motioned Jim back with a shake of his head and Jim stepped away. A patrolman helped Simon walk Angelone across to the neighbor's house. His knees kept buckling, and the sound of his weeping carried clearly in the still spring night. The neighbors stood watching, their faces washed out in the streetlights.

"Jim," Blair said, and there he was again, right at his side, his hand on Jim's shoulder. "You all right?"   
__

Fine. Just fine. I'm the one trained for this. I'm the one who knows what I'm doing here.   


He locked his jaw and looked away. There was a glow in the east. The streetlamps looked dimmer already. Blair's hand tightened on his shoulder. "It's not your fault, Jim. You know that. It didn't have anything to do with you."

    
****

8: sao jeronymo reserve, parana, brazil (ten years ago)

 

"We fell into the hands of soldiers suffering from a collective form of mental derangement, which would have repaid anthropological study, had the anthropologist not been obligated to use his entire intellectual resources for the purpose of avoiding its unfortunate consequences."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques _

 

Blair's eyes widened in astonished recognition. "Desculpe-me," he blurted out. "Can I look at that?"

Luis Carlos Valin Orinoco turned, still holding the earthenware bottle. One eyebrow was raised in mild reproof, but he was smiling.

"I'm sorry," Blair apologized at once. "I'm a terrible guest, I know. Just tell me to get out, and I'll leave."

"Don't even joke about such things." Maria Amelia, Orinoco's wife, turned from the hearth and glared at her husband and at Blair. "You are always welcome in our home." She was roasting coffee beans on a bed of sugar, and the smell of the coffee and hot sugar mingled with the smoke from the hearth and the oil from the single paraffin lamp.

"I really just wanted to see it," Blair said sheepishly. He held his hands out in an empty-pockets gesture. "Besides, Zenaida's already got all my money."

The child sitting on the beaten dirt floor looked up at the mention of her name, her eyes crinkled to slits of amusement above her round cheeks. She was wearing Blair's concert T-shirt, just as she'd been every time Blair had seen her for the past two weeks. The shirt hung down past her knees, and the hem was unraveling. "I'm serious," Blair told the little girl, smiling back at her. "You've got everything. I've got no money, no nothing. Dead broke." He repeated it in English because it sounded more emphatic. He didn't know how much Zenaida understood, but she cocked her head thoughtfully.

Hemisfereo, Orinoco's brother-in-law, laughed out loud and said something Blair didn't quite catch, though he thought it might have meant "Too bad." Blair glanced over his shoulder, but Hemisfereo's head was still bent over the harness he was braiding. Zenaida went back to her game as well, muttering softly to herself. The game was complicated, involving circles drawn in the dirt and burnt matchsticks moved back and forth with all the solemnity of a general deploying his armies. It was Maria Amelia who took the bottle away from her husband and put it in Blair's hands. "It belonged to my grandmother, Miriam Madalena," she said.

Blair accepted it reverently. "You know what it looks like to me?"

Orinoco laughed. "Something else you read about in school, I'm sure."

Blair laughed too. "Well, yeah, it does, actually." He got up and went to crouch beside the bowl of paraffin on the floor, trying to see by the light of the floating wick. The bottle was small and roughly formed, shaped like a stylized human figure, but the design was oddly complex. There were two inner chambers, a hollow handle, and a spout with breathholes that made it look a little like a musical instrument.

"I could be completely wrong, but it looks kind of like the Moche/Huari whistling bottles. Those date back some twenty-five hundred years." He heard his own words as though someone else was speaking them, and the awe gave him a rollercoaster-ride feeling in his gut. "Some anthropologists think that Moche shamans might have used whistling bottles during yage ceremonies -- blowing into them produces a sound that may have real psychoacoustic effects, even without yage. One acoustic physicist detected as many as seven partials -- " Blair realized he had switched to English again in his excitement. Orinoco and Maria Amelia were regarding him with amused tolerance.

"OK, OK. I know, sorry. I always get carried away." Blair turned the clay bottle around in his hands, survival of a tradition that had crossed continents and millennia. He took a deep breath. "What do you use this for?"

Orinoco and his wife just looked at him as though he were still speaking English.

Blair lifted the pitcher. "No, I mean, what do you do with it? Do you carry water in it -- do you actually drink out of it, or what? Do you use it every day, or just for special occasions? Oh, hey, and do lots of people have these -- or just you? Are there any potters in the village who make these now?"

The blank expressions didn't change.

"Am I not saying this right?" Blair talked faster, stumbling over the unfamiliar language in his haste and frustration. "I just want to know what you do with this. Do you blow into these holes here? Or does it make a sound when you pour water or something out of it? Is that what it's for?"

Maria Amelia turned back to the hearth where the black coffee beans gleamed against the yellow sugar. "It belonged to Miriam Madalena," Orinoco said, and his voice was sad. "She died a long time ago."

Blair stopped at once. "I'm sorry," he said miserably. What did he think he was doing? Barging in on Orinoco and his family night after night, treating their home like an interactive anthropology exhibit. No better than the evangelicals he had come here with. At least his roommate and his friends were more honest about their motives. "I didn't mean to insult you," he went on quietly. "Forgive me."

He tried to hand the pitcher back to Orinoco, but he couldn't quite manage to let go of it. Despite his shame at his rudeness, every fiber of his being yearned to try it -- just once, just to _know._ So the whistling bottles were still being made two and a half millennia later? What were they used for? How had the tradition survived? Questions Orinoco and his family couldn't possibly answer -- questions Blair knew he didn't have the training or background to ask, even if they could have answered him. And still he couldn't let go of the bottle. He raised his eyes helplessly, and found that Hemisfereo had laid the harness down in his lap and was watching him. The red light from the hearth softened his expression until it looked like a smile.

"Go on, Blair," he said. It was the first time Blair could remember Hemisfereo speaking to him directly in all the time he had spent in Orinoco's house. "It won't hurt anything."

Blair's hands tightened on the vessel. He glanced at Orinoco and Maria Amelia again, and found nothing in their expressions to dissuade him. "Thank you," he said, and lifted the bottle to his mouth.

He blew softly, and it seemed he could feel the bottle vibrating in his hands. He took a deeper breath and blew again, deeper, slower, blowing into it as though it were a recorder, then angling his breath across the top as though it were a flute. He blew until he started to feel light-headed, and little black dots sparkled before his eyes. He finally heard a moan from the belly of the vessel, soft and low, ending with a squeak when he had to break off to gasp for air.

"Did you hear that?" he panted, ecstatic, just as the violent white light flooded the interior of the hut. The illumination was terrifying after an evening lit only by firelight. Blair laid the pitcher aside and stumbled to his feet. In the harsh light, the faces of Orinoco and his family were colorless. Zenaida had covered her eyes with her hands. Only then did Blair hear the car engine and realize the light came from headlights shining starkly through the open lattice walls of the hut.

"Oh, my Luis," Maria Amelia said to her husband in a flat, hopeless voice. When Blair looked at her, he saw that she was trembling. Orinoco put his arms around his wife and held her, smoothing his hands down her back and murmuring something that Blair couldn't hear over the racket of slamming car doors. Black silhouettes moved across the walls of the hut.

"What's going on?" Blair whispered, his voice shaking. He backed away from the flimsy palm-leaf door. "Who are they?"

No one answered him. Maria Amelia broke away from her husband and pulled Zenaida up from the floor, talking to her in a soft, rapid voice. Zenaida began to cry, a low wail that rose in the night as the door was carelessly torn from its hinges and men poured into the hut. Blair had no idea how many there were -- they seemed like an entire host, though they couldn't have been more than four or five. Haloed by the headlights behind them, their faces were shapeless blanks.

They were wearing masks, Blair realized an instant later. One of the intruders was screaming at them to get on the ground. Maria Amelia had pulled her granddaughter to the floor with her, curling around her as though her body were some protection. Blair tried to kneel, but his knees were locked. He just kept standing there, staring back at the men who had shattered the evening, and thinking that this could not be happening. He saw the gun barrel swing up. _Nope, absolutely impossible.   
_

Then a hand fell on his shoulder. Hemisfereo's. "Do what they say," he told Blair, and that calm voice broke Blair's paralysis. He dropped his head and sank to his knees, Hemisfereo's hand still on his shoulder. He felt a rush of wind past his head, and heard a flat crack. The hand on his shoulder fell away, and with a grunt, Hemisfereo sprawled flat on the ground. Blair dropped as well, expecting to be struck too. He reached for Hemisfereo anyway, curling his hand around the other man's wrist. Hemisfereo lay huddled on his side, a bright ribbon of blood winding across his face. "Are you all right?" Blair asked desperately.

He didn't answer Blair but he moved his arm down enough to clasp Blair's hand as well, and held him hard. The meaning in his eyes was unmistakable. _Lie still. Be quiet.   
_

Zenaida was still crying. One of the men had begun barking questions that Orinoco answered in a muffled voice. No, he didn't belong to the Comimissao Pastoral de Terra. No, no one in his family had participated in the occupation of the Jacuma estate. No one in his family had anything to do with communists.

Blair felt a sick, terrifying heat, trickling down his scalp like sweat.

No, Orinoco was saying. No one in his family had anything to do with Americans either.

Maria Amelia screamed once, piercingly, before the gunshot. Blair flinched, yanking his hand out of Hemisfereo's grasp to throw both arms over his head in an instinctive, hopeless attempt to shield himself. But then while his ears were still ringing, he got to his hands and knees. "Please!" he shouted in his clumsy Portuguese. "What do you think you're doing?" He tried to get to his feet. "Please stop, you don't need to do this." He saw faces covered in dirty cotton sacking, and gun barrels gleaming in the headlights, shiny as roasted coffee beans. Maria Amelia was sobbing. Shadows moved across the ceiling and the far walls of the hut, and there was blood on the dirt floor.

"No Americans?" said one of the men. "Then who's this? Just a white goat you brought in from the stable?"

Someone kicked him, the booted foot driving under his ribcage. Blair crashed to the floor, curling helplessly around the blow. The second kick glanced off his knees, drawn up protectively over his gut. The toe of the boot hit his chin and snapped his head back. He sprawled flat, the shock of pain so profound that for long moments he couldn't even breathe. He simply lay there, tasting blood in his mouth, feeling it run down his face, and looked up at the palm leaves interlaced across the ceiling. He heard a low sound coming from somewhere near at hand. Someone moaning.

No, not a someone at all. Something. That precious whistling bottle. Its moan filled the hut, crowding out all the other sounds around Blair. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, but the sound faded when he did that, so he opened them again. The roof of Orinoco's hut was gone. Blair saw wavering outlines, deflected sunlight, tangled greenery, as though he were looking up into the jungle from beneath the surface of a lake. He couldn't hear the bottle at all anymore. Now all he could hear was the roar of rushing water.

    
****

9: **cascade, washington (11:05 tuesday evening)   
**

As carefully as Sandburg had been watching him, the little exploratory surgery he made before dinner shouldn't have been a surprise. But Jim was still unprepared when Blair suddenly came back to the couch and tapped Jim's forehead with two fingers. "By the way, how are your senses doing, Jim? You feeling in control? Everything OK up here?"

Jim snorted in exasperation and pushed his hand away, which didn't bother Sandburg, of course. He dropped onto the sofa beside him. "Oh, come on, talk to me, man. You need to be one hundred percent here. If something's wrong I want to know about it."

He shouldn't have let the growl escape, but he was so tired, and there were no defenses around Blair. "Not now, Sandburg. I just want you and Sigmund Freud to leave me alone until we've got a suspect behind bars, you understand me?"

Blair just wrapped an arm around Jim's neck, having to pull Jim down a little to manage it. "Right, tough guy, I understand you. Would you rather I ordered pizza? It won't hurt my feelings."

Jim closed his eyes. Blair's arm was heavy over the back of his neck, all the scents of that nursery he'd gone to filling Jim's head. "Whatever's easiest," Jim said quietly. "I don't have a lot of energy tonight."

"Right. That sounds like 'anything but the sun-dried tomato paste and feta cheese,' to me," Blair said. "Listen, I'll get pizza, then you tell me what the plan is for tomorrow, OK?"

"You're gonna be at school," Jim said. "That's the plan."

"Nice try." His left arm still resting heavily over Jim's neck, Blair threw a mock punch at his stomach. Jim caught his fist in his hand. "Classes don't start till Friday. I'm with you on this one." When Blair tried to pull his fist free, Jim held on. "I can handle this, you need me --" He was grunting now, trying more seriously to twist his hand free of Jim's easy grip. "So you just might as well give it a rest." He finally had to take his arm off of Jim's neck, trying to unpry Jim's fingers with his other hand. "What do you think you're doing?"

Jim let go. "Just trying to defend myself."

"You're such a dick," Blair told him cheerfully, pushing through the books and papers stacked on the coffee table. "And what have you done with the phone? How am I supposed to order pizza if I can't even find the telephone? Last time I saw it, it was right here. Doesn't it bug you the way it's always getting lost?"

Jim crossed his arms over his chest. "Anything I say, you're likely to start beating on me again."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell it to the marines." Blair checked behind the cushions of the other sofa, lifted aside the stack of journals piled up on the yellow chair on top of a red corduroy jacket that Jim knew perfectly well had been there for five days now, ran his hand along the top bookshelves and then finally said, "Oh well. We'll find it next time somebody calls, I guess," and padded into the kitchen to use the phone on the wall.

Jim sighed, long and deep. He did it again, breathing carefully, letting the air out slowly. He happened to raise his eyes then and see Blair watching him from across the room, a pleased little almost-smile on his face.

Caught, Jim thought. So the deep breathing worked and Blair knew it. He closed his eyes and deliberately inhaled more slowly yet. As he breathed out he heard Blair dialing, the nattering of a tinny voice on the other end of the line that Jim had no interest in trying to hear, and then Blair saying, "Sure, I'll hold."

Blair's fingers drummed against the wall as he waited. One foot tapped. Jim kept his eyes closed, and listening to the varied sounds of Sandburg nominally at rest. At last Blair said, "Yeah, hey. Calling to get a pizza delivered? Great." He gave the address, having to spell 'Prospect.' "That'll be a large, one-half vegetarian supreme, no cheese, and a double order of greek olives, and the other half double pepperoni, bacon and green peppers. Extra cheese on that half. You get that? Need me to repeat it? What do you mean? No, it's OK. I order it all the time. Ask Abdullah. Is he there tonight? Just tell him it's Blair Sandburg. It's OK. Sand-burg. Oh, come on, man. Work with me here."

Jim opened his eyes when he realized how close he had come to falling asleep. Blair was just hanging up. "I hate it when they hire new people." He got out a couple of mugs and poured two cups of tea. Jim could hear errant droplets splashing on the counter. Blair didn't seem to notice, of course, and carried the mugs over to the sofa without stopping to wipe the counter. "It's chamomile." he told Jim, handing him one. "It'll help you relax."

"So would a beer," Jim said, but he took the mug.

"You don't need that kind of relaxing," Blair said seriously. "Neither one of us does." He pulled his legs up, sitting cross-legged on the couch beside him. "So what's the plan tomorrow?"

Jim looked at him. "I'll be talking to Fred Angelone. That's first on the agenda."

Blair lowered his head immediately and pretended to be engrossed in the stream rising from the mug of tea.

"Chief," he said quietly. "There's no need for you to be there. I know you want to be there. I know you want to look out for me, but this has nothing to do with my senses. In fact, I'd feel a lot better if you went to school tomorrow anyway."

Blair looked up at once, and Jim knew he'd already lost. "No, Jim. I'm with you."

Just like last night.

***

What a hell of a partnership this was, Jim thought, and wondered if Blair understood. Blair's hand was still on his shoulder, Fred Angelone weeping and cursing as Simon and Officer Yolen helped him into the neighbor's house. The moment Blair touched him, everything had clarified and come to rest. Jim could still smell the blood, but he could filter, make choices. The reek upstairs was different from the lingering scent clinging to Sandburg's hair and clothes, the smell of it on his own skin, a miasma of filth that twisted his stomach where the remains of dinner so many hours ago still sat, indigestible. Why had he tried to eat that? He could still taste it at the back of his throat, the taint of corruption and decay. Just what he needed, to double over and lose it here in the driveway.

Jim hesitated, then reached up and covered Blair's hand with his own for a moment before shrugging free and walking around to the driver's side of Fred Angelone's car. He snapped on a latex glove and opened the car door, smelling leather, Mr. Angelone's aftershave, and stale coffee. The styrofoam cup from a 7-11 still sat in the cup holder. He closed his eyes and waited. Only a moment, and Blair was next to him again, close enough to touch. "Anything?" he asked Jim, and then put his hand on Jim's back.

With Blair so close everything was discrete, manageable. When Blair touched him, the clarity was more perfect still, a serene concentration that stretched out into the world, searching, accepting, seeking further, stretching on and on through the darkness of dawn, following a thread that wavered and shimmered so faint and clear and far away --

There. He backed away from the car and stood up. There it was. Blair's hand was still on his back. Jim wanted to weep, and he wondered if Blair knew that too. This was the cruel bargain he struck for the use of these senses. When he was open enough to use them the way Blair wanted, he couldn't shut out the other things either. Couldn't retreat behind the hard angry shell, the cop who could look at the corpse of a little girl and feel nothing but the angry desire to find her killer.

Did Blair know what a lousy cop the sentinel was?

"This way," he said, taking long strides so Blair had to jog a little to catch up. The white-faced neighbors retreated in his wake, but not by much. Jim heard them shuffling back to the end of their driveways after he had passed. The road curved down around the steep hill, and they were almost to the intersection before the first news van passed them. Jim hardly noticed, but Blair stopped to watch it go by, then ran again to catch up with Jim. "Vultures," Blair muttered.

Close, now. Along the alley that backed another block of homes that were too large for the lots they were built on, and much too close together. A dog started barking frantically. Jim stopped. Now that he was so near, it was more difficult. There were too many other smells. The uniform city garbage cans that lined the alley were all full. Rotting food. Disposable diapers. Waste, filth, decay, everything the living cast off from themselves in dismay, as though it would somehow delay the inevitable.

"Sandburg, it's here," He turned in a broad circle. "But I'm losing it. You've gotta help me."

"Hey, Jim." He was right in front of him, hands on either side of his face, making Jim look at him. "Listen to me. You're not losing it. If it's here, you can find it. Just hold on. Take it slow."

When Jim closed his eyes, steadied and grounded by the warmth of Blair's hands on him, he found it almost it once, the stunning pure scent of death that brought everything back with such horrific clarity that he staggered a little, groaning. That child dead in her own bedroom, on her own bed. She might have seen it coming. Unlike her mother, her body lay sideways on the bed, one foot almost touching the floor. It looked as though she had been trying to get up out of the bed the moment her murderer struck.

He pushed Blair aside roughly in his haste. Here it was. The fourth garbage can on the right side of the street. He eased off the lid, still wearing the latex glove, saw and smelled the rotting lettuce, cat litter, and blood.

He pulled out the crinkling material slowly. The paper looked dark gray under the glow of dawn and the security lights. The blood spattering it was black.

"Aw, Jim!" Blair said. "Fantastic! I knew you could do it. We're like two blocks away and --" He broke off as suddenly as he had started, and Jim knew he was seeing it too. The grim reaper stalking the upstairs hallway of the Angelone home in a green paper surgical gown, wielding gardening tools from Smith &amp; Hawken. Jim didn't know whether to laugh or scream. Blair was panting softly, sounding as though he was trying to keep from being sick.

Sandburg was an anthropologist. An academic. He had no business being here.

Jim never would have found this without him.

***

"Forty-five minutes till the pizza gets here," Blair said. "Maybe longer, they're always so slow. You want something to munch on?" Blair had finished his cup of tea and set it aside. Jim took the opportunity to put his own almost-untouched mug down as well. He really didn't like chamomile. The honey sweet smell of it was too intense. It crept up on him, interfered with other things, tinged everything with its sickly yellow glow.

Blair glanced down at the discarded mug, then back at Jim, almost smiling. "It really would help you relax."

"Sandburg, listen to me. I know you think you can handle this. You're probably right. The problem is, I'm not sure that I can handle having you involved in this case. Can you understand that?"

Blair sat back heavily, slumping so he could rest his head on the back of the couch. His hands lay open at his sides as he gazed up at the ceiling, considering. Jim thought about beating a strategic retreat, taking a shower, maybe, or going upstairs, but it wouldn't do anything but delay Blair a little, if at all. He envisioned having this conversation with Blair shouting at him over the noise of the shower, and decided to just stay put.

"I understand," Blair said at last. He rolled his head to the side and smiled at him. "I think I do, anyway. But there's something you need to know." He took a deep breath. "This afternoon. While I was at the nursery." Blair sat up, pulling his knees up, then crossing his legs and propping his elbows on his knees. "No, that's something else."

Jim felt a funny little shiver of cold right down his spine. The same sort of feeling he got when he realized he had left something very important undone. "What is it?"

"Just, I do understand, Jim. I think sometimes you forget I didn't spend my whole life in the library before I met you. I've seen stuff out in the field that wasn't any easier to handle than this case is."

"What happened at the nurs -"

"This was in Madagascar. Five, six years ago. Something like that, while I was doing fieldwork with the Betsileo. You know, I'd really pushed for that grant, but I was still probably too young, not nearly enough field experience, though maybe it wouldn't have made any difference in the end. There are some things you just can't be prepared for, no matter what. Anyway, I hadn't been there any more than six weeks, just long enough to start to feel at home, get to know some of the villagers, and this young woman who had told me a lot about their creation myths gave birth to twins. The Betsileo -- um -- they believe twins are monstrous. Inhuman. As soon as Adheo was strong enough, she took her own babies, these two beautiful baby girls, and she -- "

Jim knew this wasn't what Blair had intended to tell him at first, but tears were suddenly bright in his eyes, and Jim couldn't interrupt. "She killed them herself. I was right there. A part of me knew exactly what was going to happen, but I just couldn't believe it. Then it was all over with, just like that, and I hadn't done a thing. Ever since then I've thought, I don't know, that maybe if I had been more prepared I could have gotten them away, brought them home and raised them myself --" Tears spilled down his cheeks and he wiped them away clumsily with the back of his hand. "Stupid. There was nothing I could have done, not really. But I still think about them."

He got up suddenly and walked away, getting as far as the kitchen counter. He stopped and stood there, his back to Jim, and said softly, "So I understand, Jim, I really do, but you don't have to try to protect me from this. I'm already involved." His voice got quieter. "I mean, I've already been there. There's no way to take it back now."

He turned around and faced Jim at last, his arms crossed over his chest, his chin thrust out in determination. "You need me on this, Jim. And I need you even worse to get through it, because the real, total truth is, this is eating me up inside. When I think about what happened to Gwen, it's like a fire burning up my brain. Like I'm losing my mind." There was a catch in his voice, and his eyes were suddenly wide, as though he had suddenly revealed far more than he'd meant to.

"Sandburg -" Jim began, frustrated, grieving, and furious with himself. He'd known Blair had no place in an investigation like this. He never should have let the Blair ride along last night. What the hell had he been thinking?

He'd been thinking he couldn't face this alone either.

    
****

10: sao jeronymo preserve, parana, brazil (ten years ago)

 

" That the fate of a human being could be settled in so short a time and in such an offhand manner filled me with amazement. I could not bring myself to believe what I had just witnessed had actually happened. Even today, no dream, however fantastic or far-fetched, can inspire me with such a feeling of incredulity."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques _

 

The stars were so beautiful. Blair watched, breathless, as the rope of the Milky Way arced across the sky. He felt a great wind at his back, lifting his shoulders and urging him skyward.

No, not wind at all. Rushing waters, boiling out of the deep places of the earth.

Then voices spoke in anger, and the vision bled away like water from a cracked cistern. There was nothing under Blair's back but a dirt floor, and nothing overhead but the roof of Orinoco's hut. A man crouched down over him, blocking Blair's view of the roof, and wrapped his fist in the front of Blair's shirt. He had no features, just blank, black holes where his eyes should have been. Hurting and confused, Blair reached for that featureless face, touched the sackcloth, felt lips moving underneath. Then the man's other fist came down hard, smashing into Blair's mouth and crushing him to the earth.

Maria Amelia wept. The man who had struck Blair was screaming at him to stand up.

"Stop hitting me," Blair said, tasting blood. His lips felt swollen, and the right side of his face was numb. Even his teeth hurt. "I'm getting up." He tried to get to his feet, but the man above him still had his fist knotted in Blair's shirt, and the pressure in the center of his chest kept him down. Blair put his hands around man's fist. "Look, how do you expect me to --"

He saw a blur of movement from the corner of his eye an instant before the stiff-armed slap knocked his head to the side. Then while he was groaning and trying not to be sick, the man who kept hitting him dragged him to his feet by the grip he had on Blair's shirt. It hurt, just like everything else hurt, the seams in the armholes cutting into his shoulders, the collar drawn across the back of his neck like a yoke. He tried to stand, but the pain in his side doubled him over.

A hard yank on the front of his shirt, and he lost his footing altogether, twisting helplessly as his feet tangled and dragged across the dirt. The hot, close smells of coffee and paraffin and too many men in very close quarters gave way to the cold openness of the night countryside. Blair could hear the car engine running, and the reek of exhaust blotted out the living scent of cattle in the nearby field. The glare of the headlights leached the color from everything. He heard his own voice talking on desperately as he was dragged into the shadow of the car. He was trying to explain that there was no need for them to do any of this, and he was pleading with them to leave Orinoco and his family alone. He was begging for his own life as well.

Then his shirt ripped, and Blair dropped to the ground. He reached out a desperate hand, still trying to stand up, still pleading. A booted foot rolled him onto his back. The muzzle of a gun was in his face, pressed hard against his bruised lips, and the man above him hissed, "No vai terboca."   
__

You're not going to have a mouth left.   


There were others moving in the periphery of Blair's vision. Orinoco, being carried between two of the masked men, and Hemisfereo limping behind, holding his head with both hands. Blair heard the creak of a heavy car door swinging open, but he couldn't turn his head to see. He was staring hopelessly up at the faceless man above him. The man was laughing in anger, and he bore down so hard that Blair's bottom lip split under the pressure of the muzzle. Blood trickled down his chin.

A night bird screamed over and over again. Blair heard the thump, and Orinoco's groan of pain. Up until that moment, he hadn't realized that Orinoco was still alive. He heard the click of the trunk being released, and the thump of another body. Suddenly the pressure against Blair's mouth was gone, and with the abrupt release, everything hurt more than ever. Someone grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet again, half-dragging, half-pushing him around to the back of the car.

It was a huge old Chrysler, Blair noticed with a shuddering sense of the absurd. Hemisfereo already lay huddled in the trunk, one wide eye visible in the dim light. "No, please," Blair said, but it did no good. A rough hand knotted around the waistband of his jeans, hauling him off his feet, and tumbling him forward to land in a tangle of limbs. There wasn't room for both of them, but Blair heard the lid swinging down, and Hemisfereo must have seen it. He grabbed Blair and pulled him down as it slammed shut, smacking hard against Blair's back.

Car doors slammed. The engine coughed and refused to start. Once, twice, a third time, then idled roughly, the whole car shaking and the trunk filling with exhaust fumes. Blair coughed and felt bile rise in his throat. He swallowed violently. Hemisfereo's elbow was pressed hard against Blair's aching ribs, and Blair knew his own elbows and knees had to be hurting the other man as well. It was already difficult to breathe, and would only get worse. No need to worry where they were taking him, or what they planned to do with him when they got there. Blair doubted he would survive the journey.

"Run," Hemisfereo said, his breath puffing against Blair's cheek, and Blair moaned. The car finally lurched into movement, jostling them violently, and the pain in Blair's side stabbed like a knife. Run? He couldn't run even if by some miracle he got the chance to try. He wouldn't even be able to stand up. Oh god, this was not the way he had planned the summer at all, he thought, still dazed by the speed with which everything had ended. Who would tell Naomi? What would they tell her? Would anyone even know what had happened to him?

The car was moving faster now, jouncing over a dirt road rutted with wagon tracks. "I'm sorry," he told Hemisfereo, wincing as they were jolted over and over again. This was all he could do, and it was so little. A worse-than-useless apology from the stupid kid who had gotten them all killed. "They never would have come if it wasn't for me. I'm so sorry."

Hemisfereo managed to find Blair's arm in the darkness. He held on hard, coughing, and finally managed in a whisper. "Pray to the Virgin."

"But I'm not even a missionary," Blair said in despair. "You don't understand, I've lied about everything, all along." He couldn't say anything more. He was taking great, violent gasps of air, but it did so little good he might as well have been underwater. His lungs burned, and he could feel pins and needles in his fingers and toes. What a horrible way to die -- though maybe it would be easier than the gunshot. What would they do with his body?

Hemisfereo said, "You sang the icaro."

Blair knew he had heard that word before, but he couldn't remember what it meant. Perhaps he should ask. Hemisfereo's voice was clear and low, not whispering anymore. A great, rushing blackness seemed to be falling over Blair, and he knew that if he had been able to turn his head, he could have seen right through the trunk of the car, up to the great vault of the jungle and the stars beyond.

And then he found he could turn his head after all, and when he did, he saw the tree. The roots drank from the water at the center of the world, and the canopy was the Milky Way. Water poured through the heart of the tree and up into the heavens. Blair swayed closer, reached out, and saw that his own outstretched arm was covered with eyes. Hundreds of them, thousands, blinking open one after the other. There were no more illusions now. At last he was seeing true. Hemisfereo sat crosslegged, weaving a harness by firelight, and coiled around his forehead was a serpent that shone like gold. He told Blair, "Sing, curandero. If you are strong and wise, the white souls who take care of the universe will take care of you too."

The next thing Blair knew, he was on his hands and knees in the mud, throwing up over and over again. Every time his stomach contracted, he felt the pain in his side like a hot poker between his ribs. I'm supposed to be running, he thought vaguely. Headlights shone against the side of his face, burning like the sun. He could smell the vegetable reek of slow moving water somewhere close by.

At last, too weak to support his own weight anymore, he curled onto his side, and saw Orinoco and Hemisfereo beside him. Orinoco lay face down, blood pooling underneath him. Hemisfereo knelt, head bowed, eyes closed as he crossed himself. A man was holding a gun at the back of his head. Blair heard the click, and shut his eyes before the explosion.

He couldn't hear his own screams over the gunshot, but he felt his throat burned raw by the force of them. His ears still ringing from the blast, Blair didn't hear the splat of Hemisfereo's body hitting the mud either, but he heard the rest of it, footsteps squelching, a pause, and then the splash.

They came for Orinoco next. Blair opened his eyes and watched them, reminded in a strange, distant way of the time he had surprised a very young rabbit in the woods. The creature had been stupefied with terror, crouching frozen on the path, the heaving of its sides the only sign of life. Blair didn't think his own sides were heaving though. He wasn't even sure he was breathing. But Orinoco was. Blair saw the man's fingertips twitch, and the instant of insane hope gave him the strength to say, "Please help him. Look, it's not too late."

No one paid any attention to him. Two of the men hoisted Orinoco like a bag of cement and carried him beyond the glare of the headlights. Now would be the time to run, Blair thought. He heard the splash, and he was still lying there when they returned at last for him. They surrounded him, muddy boots standing in a circle around his head, and someone tried to push him over onto his stomach. They were going to shoot him in the back of the head, just like they had shot Hemisfereo. Then they were going to throw his body in the water, and no one would ever know what had become of him. Blair braced himself with one hand, and he shouted up at his murderers, struggling to make his voice loud enough to carry over the roar of the night jungle. The croaking of a million frogs, the song of a billion insects. So many lives teeming around him in such overabundance it seemed absurd to fight for one more. He didn't know what he was saying until he heard the words. He didn't even know if he were speaking in English or Portuguese anymore.

"Richard Melton is my father. Listen, you don't know what you're doing here. I'm the son of the American ambassador."

There was a moment of perfect stillness from the men above him, then an explosion of sound. But not the gunshot he was expecting, just the loud voices of angry, frightened men, cursing each other and cursing Blair. Someone kicked him in the belly, and he folded in agony. There was a scuffle above him, an argument, and finally rough hands grabbed his arms and dragged him up. He couldn't breathe past the pain in his stomach and his side. Someone ripped a long piece from his already-torn shirt and used it to blindfold him, knotting it hard at the back of his head. Blair hung suspended in their arms, not entirely certain that he wasn't already dead. He was blind now, and he still couldn't breathe, and Hemisfereo was singing. Blair could hear his low voice under the slow murmur of the water.

He was pulled around, felt metal against his shins, and began to fall. He tried to bring his arms around to brace himself, but his knees bumped hard, and then his bruised stomach. The pain was as sharp and brittle as glass, and when he finally gasped a breath, the jagged hurt made tears start to his eyes. Someone hauled at his shoulders, dragging him forward. His cheek scraped across a rough, carpeted surface that reeked of mildew and blood. He was on the floorboards in the backseat of the Chrysler, lying with his face in a puddle of Orinoco's blood. He felt movement above him, careless blows and kicks, and then booted feet resting on his calves and heavy against his shoulder. He was thinking if only he'd kept his mouth shut, he could have been resting now. No more terror and pain, just the sluggish flow of water, Hemisfereo's low voice, and the stars moving overhead like wind-tossed leaves.

****

11: cascade, washington (1:15 wednesday morning

The veggie half of the pizza hadn't been all that great. The sauce was salty and flavorless, the green pepper slices bitter and desiccated with thick, rubbery skins. And the mushrooms were definitely past their prime. Blair ate a piece anyway, wondering gloomily if they had replaced the cook when they replaced the counter help, then finished up with a couple of slices from Jim's half of the pizza. It probably wasn't any better, but under all the smoked and spicy meat, the uninspired tomato sauce hadn't seemed to matter.

It mattered now. All that meat and cheese he'd wolfed down anyway. Blair lay on his back in bed, his knees drawn up, feeling like he was trying to digest a bowling ball. Why the heck had he eaten all that? Not like he couldn't have predicted what so much grease would do to him. Man, especially after a day like today.

He curled over on this side, pulling his knees up again, and wrapped himself around the pillow. He moved slowly, trying to be quiet even though he knew perfectly well how useless it was. If Jim were tuned in, he would hear every whisper of the sheets, even the cotton batting yielding under Blair's shoulder and hip. (Yielding less and less these days, come to think of it. The old futon had seen better days.)

Never mind. He hoped Jim was sleeping. The man needed his rest.

And so did he, if he wanted to be any help at all to Jim tomorrow. He thought about the way he'd been acting the past twenty-four hours -- all spaced out and emotional, half crazy with shock and grief -- and found he really couldn't blame himself. No one could have walked the length of that hallway from Gwen Angelone's room to her mother's bedroom door last night without being changed by the experience. No one, except, perhaps, the monster who had killed them -- and that was an irony too black to think about right now. Especially alone in bed at this hour of the night.

OK, so he couldn't blame himself for being so shook by the way Gwen and Trish had died. But his feelings couldn't help them either. It was time to box them up and bury them somewhere deep, at least long enough to help Jim solve this case. Jim needed him so badly on this one. Every time he looked into Jim's haunted blue eyes he could see the plea there.

(You're always telling me I can do anything with these senses, Chief -- so for god's sake, show me how.)

And you can, Jim. You will get this guy. You've already found the surgical scrubs, right? No one else could have done that. The city garbage trucks would have been around any minute, and the evidence would have been gone for good if it wasn't for you. So you're gonna get this guy, and I'll do anything in the world to help. All I've got to do is stop hallucinating long enough to see straight, and we'll both be fine.

Blair opened his eyes fast in the darkness. He was _not_ hallucinating. He'd been thinking about Jim all day, feeling guilty because he wasn't at Jim's side -- nothing all that strange, then, about looking up and imagining for a second that he'd actually seen Jim behind the flat of herbs this afternoon in the nursery. And last night, upstairs in the hall outside Gwen's bedroom. That was the exact same deal, sort of. The nightmare feeling of pursuit, the hall stretching endlessly before him -- it was just shock and horror. And so much grief. There were acts done in this world that made creation weep, and Blair had seen too many of them himself, even before Jim. There was no way to get used to them, and no way not to react. Just pay attention, understand that you're a little bit out of your head. And make sure you stay close to Jim. They would both get through this just fine.

He rolled over on his back again, slowly and quietly, reaching back under his head to plump the pillow and push it down to cradle his neck. Relax and get some sleep. That's all he needed to do tonight.

He closed his eyes, and immediately found himself once more walking down the upstairs hall of the Angelone home. Behind him Gwen lay dead in her own bedroom, surrounded by shelves of stuffed animals, blood spattered on the Hanson and 'N Synch posters taped to the expensive wallpaper. At the other end of the hall was the master bedroom where the body of her mother lay. Strewn near her covered face were a handful of her own teeth, white and blood red, the silver filling in one molar reflecting the overhead light.

Blair swallowed a groan and refused to banish the picture by opening his eyes. He had to beat this now or he'd have nightmares all night long, be a total basket case by morning. He had to be stronger than that.

He allowed himself to remain in the master bedroom of the Angelone's beautiful house. Jim was next to him. He turned his head slowly, taking his eyes away from the corpse on the bed, and looked up into Jim's drawn face. Grief hollowed his cheeks and shadowed his eyes, but when he looked down at Blair, some of the anguish seemed to leave him. Blair stepped closer, tucking his arm around Jim's waist, then turning him away from the bedroom door, away from the upstairs hall. They would go somewhere else together. Some place clean and good.

He felt the comfortable weight of Jim's arm around his shoulders, and the mist cleared for him. He saw a broad, grassy path wandering between flowering shrubs. Oaks and maples filtered the sunlight above. He recognized this place. It was the grounds around St. Sebastian. This would do, he thought happily. Oh yeah, this was perfect. They could walk here as long as they needed -- enjoying that vacation Jim had never gotten to take in real life. Just a long, slow stroll through the grounds. No need to talk. Simply enjoying a beautiful day and the serenity of James Ellison at peace with the world.

An easy stroll into sleep. This would work just fine.

Jim left his arm around Blair's shoulders and shortened his stride to match Blair's. He didn't speak. That was the way Jim was sometimes. When he was happy, when things were going fine, he would reach out and draw Blair close. Like he was worried that Blair was rushing through it all too fast, and Jim had to reach out and grab him, pull him back so they could be in Jim's world together. It was a good feeling, Blair thought happily, patting Jim's back to thank him. And god, what a fantastic day this was. Late spring, just like the last time they had been here, the flowers blooming everywhere. Walls of pale lavender and pink melted into the soft green of the unmown grass and the lush darkness of the leaves. There had been a recent rain. Blair could smell moisture in the air and feel the damp ground yielding under his feet. Everything was soft edged and so very calm.

Blair felt himself relaxing more completely into the fantasy. He thought briefly how pleasant it would be to go back some day and do this for real. It'd be good to see Marcus again. And Jim and Father Jeremy had developed more than a grudging respect for each other. Maybe they could stop over for a couple of days on the way up north for that fishing trip Jim had been talking about.

Only thing was, it was really a little too cool to be going barefoot. The lush grass was wet and so cold the bottoms of his feet were going numb. Blair didn't complain. Jim's arm was warm at his back, Jim's hand resting at the point of his shoulder, fingers drumming absently in an odd, irregular tattoo that drew Blair deeper and deeper into sleep. For an instant he recalled there was something behind him - something he should probably be concerned about, come to think of it - but he no longer could remember what that might be. Besides, he was with Jim, so he knew he was safe.

He looked up at Jim's face, and smiled to see the serenity there. Jim's eyes were half closed, a little half-smile touching his lips, utterly content. As though there were nothing else he could possibly want in the world.

A cooler breeze ruffled the hairs on the top of Blair's head, and he glanced skyward. Aw man, no wonder everything had seemed so lush and green. Another storm was rolling in. The last slivers of blue sky were a stony azure, the encroaching thunderhead black on gray. The air itself suddenly seemed weighted and thick, holding everything around them perfectly still. "Jim, man, I think we're about to get soaked," Blair pointed out, wondering why Jim hadn't said anything. He looked around for some place to get out of the rain, but they were deep in the woods by now, no hope for shelter for miles.

Unless --

He thought at first he was looking at the gray storm clouds through the trees, but no, those were rocks, tumbled boulders larger than houses lying at the base of a stony cliff face. Maybe they could find a cave or an overhang in the shelter of the cliff, some place to wait out the storm.

"Come on, this way," he said urgently, tugging at Jim's sleeve. Jim raised an eyebrow in a skeptical look that made Blair laugh. "Well anything's gotta be better than just standing here and getting soaked," he insisted. The rain was so close he could feel the humidity against his face like something alive as he took off jogging for the cliff face. Lightning cracked across the sky an instant later, close enough for him to feel a tingle that lifted the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck just before the deafening roar of thunder.

Jim staggered at his side.

"Jim!" Blair shouted and spun around, his feet slipping on the wet grass. Jim was stumbling, one hand pressed uselessly against the side of his head. "Oh, Jim," Blair moaned, reaching out for him, but Jim shook his head with clumsy determination, grabbed Blair's shoulder and pushed him forward.

"Don't stop!" he insisted, his voice a furious whisper. "Whatever happens, Sandburg, just keep going,"

Blair didn't argue. Not with that tone of voice from Jim. He turned and ran, hearing Jim close behind him, holding back a little in order to bring up the rear. Blair ran harder. The air stank of ozone. A fat drop of rain splatted on his shoulder. A second hit the top of his head. He was weaving through the rocks now, gray monoliths rising on every side. The ground was slick with pine needles that prickled against the bottom of his feet. They were running from something far worse than the storm. The hunter who'd picked up their trail in the upstairs hallway of the Angelone home was following them still, and there was no shelter, no safety here in the woods.

"Jim --" he said, turning helplessly to confront him. "What are we gonna do?"

Jim was in full survival mode, his expression fixed, hardly seeming to see Blair. He didn't speak but he clamped his hand down on Blair's shoulder and pushed him around to face the cliffs again. With his other hand he pointed upwards. Then Blair saw it too. A long horizontal crack in the stone face perhaps fifteen feet up, little more than a thin haft of darkness splitting the gray stone. But Jim's eyes could pierce the darkness, so it must be wide and deep enough to shelter them, if Jim said so.

They ran the rest of the distance together, Jim's hand knotted in the shoulder of Blair's shirt, urging him on, steadying Blair when his feet slipped on the needle-covered ground. As they reached the side of the cliff, Blair flung his arms up, grasping for purchase so he could begin to climb. An angled ledge broke the sheer face a few feet over his head. If he could just reach it -- "Jim, help me," he groaned, straining upwards, fingers scrabbling on rock.

Jim was already crouched at his side, his interlaced fingers cradling Blair's sole. "Ready?" he asked, and Blair nodded grimly, straining his eyes in the false dusk of the storm to see the handholds in the rock. Jim lifted him until he was high enough to find a shallow outcropping with his other foot. He jammed his fingers into the irregular crevasses just overhead and began to climb, trusting Jim to be right behind him. He found one foot hold and pushed himself further up, freeing his hand to grope across the rough surface. His straining fingers closed upon a knobby ledge and he hoisted himself another few feet, searching with his bare toes for the gaps in the rock where his fingers had been moments before. Cold, fat rain drops spattered down on his back one at a time. He had to hurry. They'd never make the climb once the rain began in earnest. He stretched higher, willing his blind fingers to find the cracks and ledges in the rock. As he dragged himself up, muscles in his hands and feet began to ache with the effort of clinging to the unyielding surface. He forced himself on anyway, and he didn't look back.

Then his hand reached over the lip of the narrow crack in the rock. He'd made it. He put his other hand over the edge, palms flat, and then, as though energized by the force of the storm howling behind them, levered himself up and over the edge.

He lay still for a moment, panting, his face against the cold rock. But only for a moment. Jim was right behind him. He had to keep going so Jim could climb up too. Blair felt cool air across his face, and it smelled of wet rock and dark places. The crevasse must be deep. He crawled on his belly away from the ledge so that Jim could follow him, wriggling deeper into the heart of the rock. The only sounds he could hear anymore were his own breaths echoing from the stone that pressed on him so close, and a thin trickle of running water. He followed the sound of the water, hunching his shoulders, straightening one arm before himself so he could squeeze through the passage as it grew narrower. Just a little further now. The cool air on his face drew him onward even as the stone walls closed in around him. He wedged himself through a split in the rock so narrow that the stony roof shredded the back of his shirt, and then all at once the walls fell away. He writhed out onto the floor of a vast cavern and lay quiet, allowing the silent immensity of the place to surround him.

No, not entirely silent. Trickling water was somewhere in front of him. He couldn't see the source of the water, but the quiet plashing of cold water on wet stones shone through the measureless dark like a shining rope of stars, crystalline clear, unimaginably beautiful. Blair got to his hands and knees, then sat back on his heels, enraptured. Jim had to hear this. He had to _see_ this.

Jim.

Blair turned around. What the hell was wrong with him? Jim couldn't have followed him this deeply into the rock - the tunnel had barely been high enough for Blair to squeeze through. How could he have left Jim behind? This vast chasm of peace wasn't for him. He had to return to the storm raging outside. He had to get back to Jim.

But in the darkness, he couldn't find the passage that had brought him here. His groping fingers touched nothing but blank, solid rock. He spread his hands across the unyielding stone.

(Just stay calm, man. It has to be here.)

But it wasn't here. He got up on his knees, searching further, running his hands across the rock gently at first, and then with growing desperation. He hadn't gone anywhere. He hadn't moved. So how could the passage have vanished behind him? "Jim!" he screamed, and the immeasurable spaces around him swallowed his voice, just the way the stone cliff had swallowed him. "Jim, please!" He shouted over and over again, but his voice fell empty in the open cavern. He wasn't feeling his way across the rock wall behind him now, he was fighting to tear a passage through stone with his bare hands, clawing and scrabbling his fingertips bloody, and it wasn't any use at all. He collapsed against the rock wall, his bleeding fingers spread wide against the stone. His cries for Jim still echoed in the vast, sacred space.

Sacred?

Blair turned slowly. There was light here, shining out from the falling water up ahead. A shimmering filament touched his face just as the floor of the cavern fell out from under him, and he tumbled back into the waking world.

   
****

12: curitiba, parana, brazil (ten years ago)

 

"I knew that, slowly and gradually, experiences such as these were starting to ooze out like some insidious leakage from contemporary mankind, which had become saturated with its own numbers and with the ever-increasing complexity of its problems, as if its skin had been irritated by the friction of ever-greater material and intellectual exchange . . . . This was not the first occasion on which I had encountered those outbreaks of stupidity, hatred and credulousness which social groups secrete like pus when they begin to be short of space."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques_

 

There were six other people in the room with him. Four of them were boys younger than Blair. Twelve years old, maybe, or thirteen or fourteen, no older than that. Their faces and bodies were bruised, and their eyes were dead. One of the older men had a terribly wounded hand. It was bandaged in rags, but blood was dripping through, falling on the floor in irregular splats and drops. Blair thought it was probably a gunshot wound.

No one had spoken to Blair in all the time he had been here. He wasn't sure how long that was. No one would meet his eyes, even though the cinderblock room was so small Blair was crouched on the floor shoulder to shoulder with the man with the wounded hand, and every time Blair shifted his position, the other man groaned.

Blair had still been blindfolded when they brought him here, dazed and sick after the long journey on the floorboards of the Chrysler. They had dragged and carried him through heartbreakingly ordinary noises of traffic and human voices, into a stale place that smelled like sweat and bundled newspapers and burned coffee. He'd heard the long, iron shriek of a bolt sliding away and smelled the reek of imprisoned flesh as he was shoved forward. He fell against other bodies, and heard groans of complaint that weren't his own. Anonymous hands pushed him roughly aside, and then for a long time he'd lain curled on the floor, his legs under himself and his face against the concrete. Hemisfereo's voice was fading, and the murmur of flowing water was growing fainter as well. The pain in his side throbbed like the echo of his own heartbeat, and when it grew louder than the sound of water lapping at the banks of the swamp where Hemisfereo had died, Blair had finally pulled the blindfold away and struggled to sit up. No one helped him.

Blank faces stared at him, smeared with bruises, painted with dried blood. Blair smiled anyway, surprised by how much his mouth hurt. He reached up to touch his lower lip, and his fingertips came away stained with blood too. Probing carefully with his tongue, he found that one of his lower teeth was chipped and felt loose. Son of a bitch. Tears came to his eyes, and to cover them he asked quickly, "So where are we?"

No one answered him, except to drop their eyes.

"Is this a police station? Are we in Curitiba?"

One of the youngest boys looked back at him. Fear and pain had contorted his face into a sullen, aged mask.

"My name's Blair," he said anyway, and managed another smile. A more cautious one this time. His split lip stung like anything. "Do you know what we're here for? Have you been here long?"

The boy made an exclamation of disgust and spat at him. The spittle that ran down Blair's jeans was red with blood. "Hey, OK," Blair said weakly, raising one hand. "Forget I said anything." He shifted, trying to ease the ache in his side, and dropped his head back to rest against the cinderblock wall. He was wondering how long it would take the policieros to check out his ridiculous story. A couple of phone calls would do it. Maybe they already knew he was no ambassador's son. When evening fell, they would drive him back to the swamp and leave him to rest with a bullet in the back of his head beside Zenaida's father and grandfather forever.

Zenaida. The thought of that child was almost more than he could stand. He saw her playing on the dirt floor of Orinoco's home, so proudly wearing Blair's concert T-shirt. He'd talked her into accepting that bright cotton rag in exchange for the sacred image of her god, and then he'd led the murderers of her family straight to her doorstep. Blair moaned out loud because he couldn't help it, and tried to curl forward into himself. The pain in his ribs bit too hard, though, and he had to sit up, his back against the cold cinderblock, and face the other ones here. The ones who were waiting to die, just like him.

Not like him. They didn't deserve this fate.

But he didn't want to die, and he wondered, numbly, at the way he clung to a fantasy of being rescued, of somehow finding a way out of this. There was no good reason he wasn't dead already. He would be soon. Even the children here in the cell with him knew that. He couldn't even think of a good reason why he should deserve to live. Not with so much blood on his hands, he might as well have pulled the trigger himself, back there on the banks of the marsh.

No, there was at least one good reason to try to live anyway. Naomi. He imagined what they would tell her if he died -- how they would tell her -- and his throat ached with tears. She would come down here, he knew that. No power on earth could keep her away, not Naomi. And she would never stop looking for him. Not until she pulled his body from the swamp with her own hands. Or until the men who had killed her son got tired of her relentless and inconvenient questions, and killed her too.

Blair shook his head. He couldn't think about that, or he was going to lose his mind. He wiped his eyes roughly and turned to the man with the bandaged hand. "Com licença," he said softly. "I just want to know where we are. Is this really a police station?"

The other man stared straight ahead. He wouldn't even look at Blair.

"Come on," Blair persisted, "Are we under arrest? Can't you even tell me that much?"

He didn't answer. No one would answer.

OK, fine. He couldn't blame them for being afraid to talk to him. Look what being friendly had gotten Orinoco's family. He closed his eyes against the shudder of grief, then resolutely opened them again. No matter what, he couldn't just sit here and do nothing.

He looked at the door of their cell. It was metal, painted a muddy industrial green that was flaking away. A small, square window of wired glass was set near the top. All right, that was a place to start. Attract the attention of the guard, get out and talk to someone. If this were a police station, maybe they'd even let him use the phone. He braced himself against the cinderblock wall at his back and tried to stand, but the hurt in his side pulled at him with a sudden sharp tug. He sat back down, breathing hard. The sensation of something wrong inside was scarier than the pain. He touched his ribs, feeling gingerly under his ripped shirt, frightened of what he might find. He must have jostled the man with the wounded hand, moving around like that, because he groaned in protest.

"Sorry," Blair whispered. He couldn't find anything obviously wrong with himself - certainly not the smashed, splintered bones that the pain in his side made him imagine. Little hairline fracture, maybe. Bruises. He'd live. That chipped tooth really pissed him off though.

The anger was a good thing. He cradled it to himself as he curled forward onto his hands and knees. Naomi was right. Nobody dumber and more dangerous than men with guns and delusions of authority. What did they think they were accomplishing anyway? Killing a couple of farmers, kidnapping some clueless American kid. When Blair got out of this, he was going to make sure the story was heard. He couldn't bring his friends back, but he'd sure as hell do everything possible to make sure it didn't happen to anyone else. He waited until the pounding between his temples faded, then he pulled his legs under himself and knelt up cautiously. He felt the tug in his side again, sharper this time, and kept moving anyway until his vision went fuzzy, and he had to stop. Whew. OK. Just keep breathing. He could do this. He turned enough to brace one hand against the wall and forced himself to his feet. He had to lean on the wall for a moment to rest once he was standing. A couple of the boys in the cell with him watched the struggle with bleak interest. Blair shrugged at them, smiling as much as he could. "Hey, don't laugh," he said. "At least it's progress." He stepped carefully over the man with the wounded hand. The boy on the other side drew up his legs, clearing a place for Blair to stand. Blair didn't know if he were really trying to help, or was just afraid the crazy American would step on him if he didn't move. "Muito obrigado," Blair said anyway.

The boy raised his head and smiled up at him for just an instant, eyes crinkling almost shut above round cheeks. There were bruises around the child's throat, and Blair had to look away. What the hell kind of a place was this? Beating up children, throwing them in jail. He had to get out. They all had to get out of here. He stood on tiptoe and peered out through the dirty pane of glass. He couldn't see anything but a wall on the other side of a corridor painted the same color as the door.

He pounded on the glass with his fist. "Hey!" he shouted, his voice cracking. He tried again. "Hey, anyone out there?" The glass rattled a little, but he doubted his voice carried ten feet past the metal door. He banged on the door with the flat of his hand. "Hey! Can anyone hear me?"

Nothing. Blair pressed his cheek to the glass, trying to see more of the corridor outside their cell. There wasn't much more to see. To one side was another of the cinderblock walls. A short distance to the other side was another door like this one. No one would hear him if he screamed his head off in here.

Not a very comforting thought. He turned around, swaying on his feet. He didn't want to sit down again, not when just standing up had been such a struggle. His hand stung from banging on the metal, and shouting made him realize how thirsty he was.

Food and water. That was it. Surely someone would be around any time now with something for them to eat and drink. That's when he'd make his move. Convince them to let him use a telephone, say. He could call the mission and get them contact someone at the American consulate. Maybe it was a pretty feeble hope, but so far nothing better had suggested itself.

He ran his hand along the edge of the door. No doorknob on this side, of course, and the hinges were on the outside.

What was he thinking? Did he really think he could break out of here? He was having trouble standing up on his own two feet. What was he going to do - smash down the door, overpower a guard or two, run all the way back to the States? Great plan, Sandburg. You're practically home free.

He hardly realized that he'd given up until he was on the floor again, crouched with his back against the door and his knees drawn up to his chest. His mouth hurt. His ribs hurt. He was so thirsty.

And Hemisfereo was wrong. He didn't know how to sing the icaro, and the white souls who took care of the universe had left him here to die.

   
****

13: cascade, washington (2:00 wednesday morning)  


Blair awoke with a gasp and lay very still, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for the last tatters of the nightmare to leave him. So much for the benefits of visualization meditation. God, what a dream. His fingertips still felt raw from clawing at the rock, and he had an almost overwhelming urge to make sure Jim was all right. He didn't know why he had dreamed of leaving Jim behind, but he thought maybe it was worse than dreaming about Gwen's murder would have been.

No, it had definitely been worse. His heart felt as raw as his fingertips. After another minute he pushed the comforter back, swung his feet around and sat up, still telling himself to relax and forget it. It was just a dream, after all. It didn't have to mean anything. But his bedroom felt claustrophobically small all the same. He rested his elbows on his knees and his head on his hands. When he closed his eyes he could hear the peaceful sound of water splashing down on smooth river stones.

The hell with this.

He got up. The loft was a little chilly -- Jim was happiest in sub-arctic conditions, per usual -- so he groped around in the dark for the flannel shirt he'd been wearing last night, found it wadded at the foot of the bed, and pulled it on. His legs were still cold, but putting on more clothes would be like admitting he couldn't sleep tonight, and that wasn't the deal at all. He just needed to clear his head. Get a drink of water and a little fresh air, maybe.

In his flannel shirt and boxers he padded out into the kitchen. It smelled like pepperoni and tomato sauce out here. By the city lights that shone in through the clerestory windows, he could see why. The pizza box was still sitting on the dining room table. That was how tired both of them had been when they went to bed last night -- too beat even to carry the box outside, even though Jim hated the smell of grease-soaked cardboard. Blair had to admit, sentinel or not, he wasn't too fond of it himself. He looked upstairs to where Jim lay sleeping, and realized he was still struggling with a pointless urge to go up and make sure Jim was all right.

Oh man, he had to get over it already. How could he expect to keep Jim calm and focused during this investigation when he couldn't even keep a handle on his own emotions? Well it stopped right now. Case closed, end of discussion. He'd carry the pizza box downstairs to the dumpster, then go back to bed and get some sleep, be ready to be Jim's partner in the morning, one hundred percent.

His sneakers were in a heap under the coat rack. He stuffed his bare feet into them, smashing the heel down on his right shoe in the process. Muttering under his breath, he lifted his foot and tried to fix his shoe one-handed without dropping the pizza box. He had to lean his shoulder against the door to keep his balance, and he suddenly smiled to himself as he finally managed to hook his index finger under the bent-down heel and drag it up. Oh yeah, no telling what Jim would do without Blair Sandburg's invaluable help.

Still grinning to himself, he released the chain and dead bolt and let himself out into the hall. It was even colder out here, and the night lighting seemed somehow bleaker even than the darkness inside the loft had been. Someone had been smoking in the stairwell, probably hours ago, but the smell lingered in the enclosed space. He took the stairs down to the ground level, running lightly and thinking that Jim would have fussed at him about his untied shoelaces. He shoved at the panic bar on the downstairs door with his free hand and let himself out into the night. A mist was drifting in from the waterfront, and there was no horizon, no stars nor sky. Just the orange glow from the city lights, a hazy ceiling that hung claustrophobically low and reminded Blair of the cave in his dreams. It must have rained earlier, too. The sidewalk was wet, and Blair could hear the trickle of water dripping from the roofs and downspouts. He let the door close gently behind himself, careful not to let it latch since he hadn't bothered to bring the key, and carried the pizza box around to the dumpster at the side of the building. Water was dripping from the fire escape and plinking drop by drop on the battered metal lid of the dumpster.

Plink, plunk. Plink, plunk.

What sad, hollow music that was. Blair shivered, chilled to the bone as he clutched the heavy lid and eased it upward. The water collecting on the lid rushed back to the hinges and poured off the side, splashing on the pavement. Blair stepped back quickly to avoid getting soaked. The nauseatingly warm smell of garbage drifted up into the cool night air, and Blair remembered yesterday morning with Jim, finding the blood-soaked surgical gown.

He dropped the box and let the lid down too quickly. It clanked with terrifying loudness, and Blair whirled to look behind him. There was no one else here -- he felt sure he wasn't wrong about the quality of loneliness on the street -- but he wasn't much reassured by it. Gwen's murderer was out here somewhere too, under the same closed-in orange sky. Could he sleep after what he'd done? Or was he awake too? Maybe playing it over and over again in his mind and enjoying the memories.

Blair pulled his open shirt together and crossed his arms hard over his chest, half jogging back around to the street door. Jim and Simon had argued about the killer's motives yesterday morning, back at the station. Simon was convinced the ferocity of the murders proved it was a contract killing. "Gruenditch's people are running into problems trying to collect old debts with their boss dead, and this was a warning. They made it sloppy to be sure everyone got the message."

"Come on, Simon, did you even look at the spray pattern? Someone did that with a six inch garden fork. A contract killer would have used a shotgun."

"So they hired a psycho on purpose. If the murders were intended to be some kind of sick publicity stunt, it was important to keep it on the front page as long as possible."

"I don't know if I can buy that. The guy just took too many risks, like all the time he spent on Trish. Even supposing her throat was cut too fast for her to scream, the force of the blows would have made some noise." Jim's eyes flickered to Blair for an instant. "I think Gwen was awake and heard some of it, and if she'd run, she might have escaped. You're gonna have a hard time convincing me that was the kind of man Gruenditch's people would hire to do a job."

For a moment Blair allowed himself to think about that -- Gwen waking up in the night and hearing those sounds coming from her parents' bedroom. Then the footsteps down the hall. Slow and steady. Coming for her.   
__

Oh, Christ.   


Blair stopped at the street door, swallowing hard and trying to banish the pictures. There was no point making himself crazy like this. He glanced over his shoulder once more and pulled the door open, letting himself back into the stairwell. The smell of cigarette smoke seemed stronger, and it suddenly occurred to him that he should have brought his keys. What was he doing leaving the door open in the middle of the night anyway? Just suppose Simon was right. The people who'd arranged for Gwen and Trish to die had even more reason to hate Jim.

A sudden, sick panic washed over Blair and he began to run, bounding up the stairs three at a time. God, he'd left the front door standing wide open too. He rounded the first turn and then the second, swinging himself around with one hand on the banister, and on the final landing from the third floor, he stepped on his shoelace and would have sprawled headlong if his foot hadn't come out of his shoe. He stumbled hard and kept going, one last flight, and as he neared the landing, he tried to take the last four steps at once. He missed and instead smashed his big toe against the riser so violently the whole world went red.

Oh damn oh damn oh damn. This was a bad one. Even before the pain started he knew it how bad it was. He was falling forward, holding his breath because when he started to breathe again he would feel it, and there was no doubt about it, it was gonna hurt like hell. He felt the dull impact of the floor against his knees and the heels of his hands and he curled over onto his side in a tight, tight ball, clutching his foot with both hands. Goddammit, what an idiot. What a stupid, clumsy -- He took an involuntary gasp of air, and oh shit, it hurt just as badly as he'd known it was going to. A shocking, infuriating pain that was all the more unbearable because it was just so fucking stupid. He rolled his head against the wooden floor, jaw clenched hard, enraged at his own clumsiness.

The smell of smoke was suddenly much stronger, and he realized that wasn't cigarette smoke at all. That was a fire. Wood charcoal. It billowed down the hall toward him, carrying other scents with it. Coffee beans and burnt chili peppers and what the HELL was going on here? He craned his neck, trying to see their door at the end of the hall. The door was opening, the smoke clearing. Light blazed out in the hall, and that confused him, because when he'd left, the hall had been light and the loft in darkness. An odd double shadow moved against the door, as though cast from a figure caught by twin spotlights. Blair swallowed a groan. There weren't two lights. There were two people stepping out of the light. Beautiful girl children, their skin as dark as their shadowed eyes, their faces still wet from the cistern where their mother had drowned them years ago. They were smiling, Adheo's twins, and Blair knew he was seeing them as the children they should have grown to be, if only he could have saved their innocent lives. Tears rose and blurred his vision. Their faces wavered, growing younger as though time were rushing away from him as he watched. He wanted to speak to them, to ask why they were here, but he couldn't bear to see them die again, so he squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face toward the floor. He didn't look up again until Jim slammed the door open wide and came running down the hall for him. "Sandburg, what in the hell --"

"Oh, man," he moaned as Jim knelt beside him. "Jim, they were right here. I saw them. They were right here."

"Hush, hush, easy, easy," Jim said, touching a finger to Blair's lips to silence him. His eyes were still bleared from sleep. He hadn't even stopped for his robe, and was crouching beside Blair in his boxers, goosebumps rising on his arms. He cocked his head to one side, listening. "But they're not here now?" he finally asked.

"No," Blair whispered.

"Who was it, Chief?"

"Adheo's baby girls. Jim, they came out the front door, they were looking at me, I _saw_ them -"

Jim turned his head for a moment. "OK, take it easy," he said quietly. When he looked back at Blair his face was very gentle. He put his hand on Blair's shoulder. "It's all right now. You just take it easy for me, can you do that?"

Blair nodded, struggling to sit up. Jim wrapped his hand around Blair's wrist and gently drew him up, easing his shoulders around until he could sit with his back against the wall. Blair clutched at his foot with both hands, hissing. The pain was settling into a steady, hot throb that made him feel a little sick.

Jim eased his hands away. "Hold still," he said quietly. "Let me look."

Blair took a shuddering gasp of air. "I'm sorry," he groaned. "Stupid of me. Shouldn't have left the door unlocked."

"Don't worry about it." He closed his hand over Blair's foot, moving his thumb gently across the side of his toe. "I don't think it's broken. You want to try and stand up?"

"No," he whispered miserably. "Just a second, please, Jim? Just to catch my breath."

"No rush," Jim said. "Let's take it easy."

Blair nodded, trying to steady his breathing.

Jim patted his shoulder. "Where's your other shoe?"

"On the stairs, I think."

"Uh huh," Jim said. "Will you be OK while I get it? Hate to leave it for someone else to trip over."

"Yeah, I'm OK," Blair said, lying his head off and hoping Jim wouldn't call him on it. He didn't. He squeezed Blair's shoulder, then got up and ran carefully down the steps, his bare feet all but silent on the wood. It made Blair nervous when Jim rounded the corner of the first landing, and he sat up straighter, craning his neck to try to follow his progress.

He was back in a moment, Blair's running shoe in hand. "They put laces on these for a reason, you know," he said.

"Yeah," Blair agreed unhappily.

Jim crouched beside him, handed the shoe to Blair to hold, then wrapped his arm firmly around Blair's back, his hand under Blair's shoulder. "It's cold out here, so let's get back inside, OK? Count of three. One, two -" Jim rose to his feet, easing Blair up with him. "How's it feel?"

"It hurts like hell," Blair grunted, trying to take a step without putting any weight on his toe.

"I'm sure it does." He kept Blair tucked close for every hobbling step. "Sandburg, do you remember what you were doing out in the hall in the first place?"

It seemed like a weird way to ask the question. Why wouldn't he remember? "I wanted to carry the pizza box to the dumpster."

Jim kicked the loft door shut behind them and helped Blair the rest of the way to the sofa. "Just take it easy," he directed, as though Blair were capable of anything else right now. Jim grabbed a cushion from the other sofa and laid it flat on the coffee table, then put his hand under Blair's calf and coaxed him into lifting his foot and resting it on the cushion. "Hold still. I'll get some ice to put on it."

Blair wrapped his arms around his shoulders, shivering. "Too cold for ice."

"Believe me, you don't ice it, by tomorrow morning it'll be so swollen you won't be able to wear a shoe on that foot." He swept the blanket off the back of the sofa and tucked it around Blair. He stayed there for a moment longer, both hands on Blair's shoulders, watching his face. "The pizza box?" he said at last, looking so bewildered Blair wanted to laugh. "Couldn't it have waited until morning?"

Blair grinned a little. He couldn't help it. "Just trying to help, man."

Jim rolled his eyes to the heavens, smiling like he couldn't help it either, then he straightened up again, aiming a cuff at the side of Blair's head. "Trying to help. God help us both."

Blair tilted his head, trying unsuccessfully to duck. Jim was still chuckling as he went to the fridge and pulled out the ice cube tray. "Trying to help," Jim muttered again, and it suddenly occurred to Blair that Jim was taking this whole thing really well. Really remarkably, unbelievably well.

"Jim?" he asked cautiously. God, his foot was killing him. He tried to curl his big toe a little - Jim had said it wasn't broken after all- and the shock of new pain made him yelp.

Jim was dropping a handful of ice cubes into a ziplock baggie. "Just sit still," he said without turning around. "Where's the aspirin?"

"I'm pretty sure we're out."

"It was on the grocery list," Jim said mildly. He carried the ice pack and a dishtowel back to Blair and sat down beside him on the sofa.

"Yeah, but I got groceries at the co-op last week. They don't carry stuff like that."

"Or hamburger meat either, I suppose. So that explains why the freezer's full of polenta. Here, bend your knee," he directed, and lifted Blair's knee until the sole of his throbbing foot was flat on the cushion. He draped the towel over his foot and then gently laid the ice pack on top. "Better?"

"Yeah." Blair managed another grin. "Well, no, not really, but it beats lying out in the hall in my underwear."

Jim snorted. "So next time leave it until morning, OK, Sport?"

"Hey, no argument from me. I just don't want to hear any more complaints about my housekeeping. Jim -" he said seriously then. "Jim, I was thinking about something. What if Simon and Mr. Angelone are right, you know? About this having to do with you shooting Tom Gruenditch, and his organization not getting any respect anymore, now their boss is dead."

"It's not impossible, by any means," Jim said, just as seriously. "We don't have enough information dismiss any possibilities yet."

"Yeah, well, if that's right, if they're willing to kill a whole family, practically, just to make a point, then it just seems to me that - well, geez, Jim, they might come after you, too."

Jim nodded, still serious. "It's a valid concern. We should both be careful." His expression softened. "Is that why you were flying up the stairs like that?"

"Sort of." Blair closed his eyes. "And I smelled smoke in the hall. Did you smell it?"

"No."

"I thought it was a cigarette at first, but it wasn't. More like a cooking fire. You didn't smell it at all?" He risked opening his eyes to look at Jim's face.

"No," he told Blair patiently. "There wasn't any smoke, Chief. Not that I could smell."

Blair looked down at his hands. "That's when I saw Adheo's little girls, after I'd tripped on the step. The thing was, Jim, they weren't babies anymore. They were five or six years old. As old as they would be today if I hadn't let them die."

"Listen to me," Jim snapped. He reached out and cupped Blair's chin in his hand, drawing his face up and forcing Blair to meet his eyes. As sharp as Jim's voice was, his eyes were almost desperately gentle. "What happened to those baby girls was not your fault, anymore than what happened to Gwen was your fault."

That surprised him. "What are you talking about, man? Do you think - god, is there some sort of connection here?"

And suddenly there was, right _there_, right in front of him, just a hair's breadth out of reach. Blair could see the connection, he could feel it, he was so close to understanding everything his breath caught in his throat. He just needed a second to be still and concentrate, to let the pieces fall into place, but dammit, Jim was still talking and Blair couldn't block him out. "This case has everyone spooked," Jim was saying. "I know what's going on here, Sandburg, believe me."

The man was trying so hard to make everything all right, to keep everything manageable and sane, but what Blair was reaching for wasn't sane at all. "No you DON'T know," he told Jim furiously, working his hand out from under the blanket and making a gesture of frustration, trying to wave Jim away. He didn't really want Jim to leave. He just wanted him to shut up for a second so he could figure this out.

It was already too late. Jim let him go and turned away. "All right," he said quietly.

"No, Jim, wait, I didn't --"

He was afraid Jim was going get up and walk away, but he didn't. He only leaned forward on the couch, his forearms resting on his thighs, his hands hanging empty between his knees, and just sat there, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Then let me tell you what I do know, Sandburg. This case is too much for me. In the morning I'm going to ask Simon to reassign me."

   
****

14: curitiba, parana, brazil (ten years ago)

 

"We then discover that no society is fundamentally good, but that none is absolutely bad; they all offer their members certain advantages, with the proviso that there is invariably a residue of evil, the amount of which seems to remain more or less constant and perhaps corresponds to a specific inertia in social life resistant to all attempts at organization."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques_

 

After a time, Blair began to worry that the man with the gunshot wound in his hand might be bleeding to death. His blood was still oozing through the bandages and falling with irregular drops on the concrete floor. "Hey," Blair said at last. "Maybe you need to bandage that up a little tighter." He didn't particularly expect a response, and he didn't get one, except that one of the younger boys who had managed to drop off to sleep awoke and regarded him with dark, reproachful eyes. "Look, I don't mean to bother you," Blair persisted, "but I really think you oughtta stop the bleeding." He tried to lean over far enough to touch the man's shoulder, but the pain in his side stole his breath, and he had to sit back, panting, while he waited for the worst of it to subside.

When he was able to move again, he got slowly to his knees, then shuffled and crawled to the man's side, forcing the boys between them to pull their legs out of his way. They did, with muttered complaints. Once he was there he had to stop and rest again, sitting back on his haunches, head hanging down, breathing like he'd just run a marathon. The deep breaths hurt too. A renewed sense of his own vulnerability crept up on him as he rested, and he thought with a sort of detached, cold horror, that he was hurting like this because men with all the power and authority here wanted him to hurt. They could do whatever they wanted. Once Blair's flimsy story collapsed, they would probably avenge themselves for the extra trouble Blair had caused them, and there wasn't a damned thing Blair could do about it, not really.

His heart felt like ice in his chest. For a few moments he forgot all about the man bleeding to death at his side. He wanted to go back to the world where there were rules and safeguards. Where he was protected. Pretty damn ironic position for Naomi Sandburg's son, wasn't it? His mother had spent her whole life fighting against the very rules Blair longed for now. Despite everything, he felt a grim little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. If he got out of this, he'd have to tell her how much he would have given for the sight for a plain old blue-suited cop from any old town in the States, donuts and beer belly and all.

OK, maybe it wasn't always so simple. After all, he had grown up hearing about those five days in the fall of 1968, when Mayor Dailey had turned his good old middle American cops loose on the streets of Chicago. No one had been safe from them. Not campaign workers or delegates or reporters, least of all the protesters. Naomi had seen her friend Rennie Davis beaten senseless in Grant park, and when she tried to help him, the cops had turned on her as well. She'd ended up with a concussion and two broken fingers that had gone untreated the entire thirty-six hours she was in jail. Not so different, after all, from where Blair was now. He supposed if he were a real anthropologist, he would have been interested in the persistence of social patterns across times and cultures, but all he could think of was the funny outward crook on Naomi's left pinkie finger, a permanent reminder of her ordeal. It could have been worse. She'd been two months pregnant with Blair at the time.

Blair looked around himself, the thought of Naomi's strength giving him hope as well. He and Naomi had survived together some nineteen years ago. He would prove himself worthy of his mother's courage, and survive this now.

At the very least, he'd give it his best shot.

"Excuse me," he said, and laid his hand on the wounded man's shoulder. "I'm going to see if we can get the bleeding stopped, all right?"

The other man raised his eyes to Blair's and spoke softly, shaking his head. "This way is easier." His voice was slurred with exhaustion and pain, so Blair decided to pretend he had misunderstood.

"No, I'll be careful, I swear. Just let me look." He took the man's forearm and lifted it as gently as he could. The wounded man's head rolled back against the cinderblock wall, a grunt of agony escaping him. "I'm sorry," Blair whispered, and put his hand on the man's forehead, hoping the touch would be some reassurance. He looked down at the rough bandages. They were filthy, coarse-woven cloth, saturated with blood, tied as though the injured man had dressed the wound himself. Blair tried not to think about what the wound itself must look like. Especially since there was nothing he could do about it except try to stem the bleeding. He laid the man's hand down again. "By the way, my name's Blair," he said as he tried to pull his own T-shirt up over his head. It was the only thing he could think of to use as a bandage, and besides, it was already in shreds. But raising his arms hurt more than he had counted on, so he gave it up in favor of tearing strips away without taking it off. "Oh, right, I guess I told you that already. Como voc se chama?"

Dark eyes met his own.

"Right," Blair said. "Let's try it this way. Just stay with me and we'll see if we can get this wrapped up a little tighter." He lifted the man's hand and laid his forearm on his own raised knee, then wrapped a strip from his shirt over the sodden bandages, crossing them over the other man's palm, tightening carefully across the back of his hand. "Hang on now. You're doing great."

The man made a muttering sound, a groan so deep in his throat it was almost a growl, but he didn't pull away. Blair let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "What do you think? A couple more wraps?" He was already tearing another strip from his much abused shirt when he heard the shriek of the dead bolt behind him, and he froze, all his vows of courage bleeding away like a wound no bandage could staunch. He couldn't even turn his head to see who was there. His chest ached with terror, and his blood felt as though it was prickling in his veins, needles and pins working their way from the inside out. He wanted to throw up.

"Melton," a voice snapped. "Esteja acima." _Get up.  
_

That was no Brazilian name. They must mean him. But 'Melton'?

Oh shit. Richard Melton's son. That was him. He lurched to his feet with guilty haste and turned, arms crossed hard over his gut as though that could hold back the pain in his side. In the doorway stood a man dressed in blood and sweat-stained khakis. His face was hidden behind a mask of cotton sacking.

"Hey," Blair whispered, his mouth so dry he could hardly get the words out. "I was wondering if I could use the phone."

   
****

15: cascade, washington (2:10 wednesday morning)  


The whole world stopped. Kind of amazing, really. And not just the whole world. The intricate clockwork of the entire universe snapped a cog and came groaning to a halt, and Jim didn't even seem to a notice. He just kept sitting there beside Blair, head down in defeat, hands dangling helplessly between his knees.

"Jim --?" Blair swallowed and tried again, reaching out to lay his hand on Jim's slumped shoulder, "Jim, I can't believe it. You're quitting? Why?"

Oh crap, he could have come up with a better way to ask that, but he was just too stunned to be tactful about it. Jim didn't seem to mind, though. He only sat up a little and clamped his hand on Blair's knee through the blanket. "I haven't been able to check my emotions on this one, Chief." His voice was quiet and matter-of-fact. "I'm too involved. It makes me a danger to myself, to the people around me, to the success of the investigation."

"Wait a minute, I know it's personal, but c'mon, Jim, it's always personal with you."

A bleak sort of smile lit Jim's eyes. "Is that the way it looks to you?"

"Don't act like it's some kind of newsflash, man. You treat every case this way whether you know the people involved or not. Like every crime that happens in Cascade was your fault -- or like maybe you could have prevented it if you'd been a better cop or something."

And there was no reason to have said that either, not the way it came out, but the words had escaped and were hanging between them before he could even try to stop them. Jim only laughed, a short, dry chuckle without much amusement in it. "Sounds like you've been watching me pretty close," he said.

"Well of course I have!" Blair snapped. "Not like that's the whole reason I'm here or anything." And then he couldn't believe he had said that too.

Jim only sighed and pushed himself up from the couch. "It's gonna be a long day tomorrow," he said, looking down at Blair but being careful not to really look at him. "You need help getting back to bed?"

"Jim --" he began. There were about a million things he needed to say, and he knew as sure as Jim's eyes were blue that Jim wouldn't hear any of them right now. Not after so many mistakes, one right after another. He could tell himself that he was getting everything so wrong just because his big toe was killing him, and because he was scared and confused and about half-way afraid he was losing his mind, and to top it all off, he really hadn't gotten enough sleep the last couple of nights, and all of that would be true. It didn't make things any better, though, so he only said, "Jim, come on." He closed his eyes for a moment before daring to look Jim in the face again. "Please."

Jim gazed over Blair's head, like there was something really fascinating about the wall. At least he wasn't walking away. Good thing, since Blair really didn't want to go chasing him around the loft tonight. Not the way his toe felt. His heart was another matter. "Jim, listen," he said. "I know I'm acting crazy tonight." He kept his voice low. "I guess everything's pretty crazy right now, but give me another chance. Please sit down and talk to me about this. Just tell me what's going on."

Jim swallowed. His lips were pressed together in a thin, tight line. It wasn't easy, but Blair waited for him without saying anything else. Because you wouldn't think it, would you? But for a man who claimed all he really wanted was a little peace and quiet, sometimes it turned out the only thing Jim really couldn't fight was silence. And sure enough, eventually Jim let out a long gust of air and said, "You want a beer, Sandburg?"

Blair snorted. "Oh yeah, like that's really what we need at two in the morning."

Jim cocked his head at him, careful not to smile. "Is that a yes or a no?"

Blair grinned back. "Yeah, Jim, get me a beer too if you're having one."

Jim detoured to the bathroom on the way, and snagged his bathrobe from the back of the door. Blair watched him, realizing he was still pretty numb with disbelief. Jim planning to quit the case? That was not James Ellison. No way. Not ever. He'd seen Jim continue an investigation under the threat of suspension -- heck, after actually being suspended. Nothing stopped him, not his senses being on the fritz or shutting down altogether. Even being blind had hardly slowed him down. No matter what else was going on, Jim never dropped a case. It just didn't happen.

Except once. The realization hit like a ton of bricks. Oh god, except once.

He must have started to shake or something because Jim snatched the beers out of the fridge like the building was on fire and neither one of them intended to leave it without a cold brew, and came charging back to the sofa. "You OK, Sandburg? Need me to take another look at that toe?"

"No." Blair reached out a hand for the bottle, and was glad to see it wasn't trembling. "It's OK. I'll live."

Jim sat down on the sofa beside him, holding his own beer in both hands, not drinking yet. "Only you, Chief." Blair supposed he was trying to sound exasperated, but it didn't come out that way. It sounded like a very quiet surrender.

Blair took a long drink. "So what's going on?" There, he thought his voice was pretty level. "Is it your senses?"

"I'm not sure." Jim set his own beer down on the coffee table. He hadn't had a sip. "I mean, all right, yeah, it's my senses, but it's subtle, you know? It crept up on me before I realized what was happening."

"Can you -- " Blair gestured helplessly with his free hand. "Well, can you describe it at all? Does it seem to you like your senses are shutting down, or is it something else?"

"No," Jim said softly. "They're not shutting down."

Blair heard the unspoken wish there. This would be easier for Jim if they were.

"What is it, man? I can't help unless you tell me."

Jim turned to smile at him, his expression so sad and so kind that Blair felt tears start to his eyes. The only time Jim had ever tried to quit a case? Why don't you tell us about it, Mr. Sandburg. Almost three years ago, now, when Jim's senses had reemerged during the Switchman bombings. There'd been no one to help him then, no one to explain to Jim what was really going on. Jim had thought he was losing his mind, and the day before Blair had finally found his Sentinel, Jim had asked Simon to take him off the case.

Blair took another long swallow, mostly to buy himself a little time. He had to calm down and go easy here. Find out what was wrong with Jim's senses, and then maybe he could take the next step and figure out why Jim felt as frightened and alone as he had three years ago. Why he thought there was no one in the entire world who could understand what was happening to him, even though Blair was sitting right next to him, right here on Jim's own couch, for god's sake.

"Easy, Chief," Jim said quietly, interrupting his thoughts. His hand was around the neck of Blair's beer bottle, gently tugging it away.

"What?"

"You're gonna break the bottle like that."

He relaxed his death grip on the beer and let Jim take it away from him. Deep breaths, he thought, closing his eyes. Just calm DOWN. Was it any wonder that Jim was freaking, the state Blair was in?

The soft touch startled him, and he opened his eyes. Jim had laid his closed fist gently against Blair's face, his knuckles over Blair's temple, the heel of his hand warm against his cheekbone. "Hey," he said quietly. "You sure you feel like talking about this tonight?"

Blair leaned into that careful touch, taking strength from it. Ironic, wasn't it? To need so much from the man he was trying to help. "I'm sure," he told Jim. "Tell me what's going on. Maybe it'll help us both out."

Jim smiled, but then he let his hand drop, and Blair missed the warmth of that touch so profoundly he had to stop himself from reaching out and putting Jim's hand back. The coolness he felt at Jim's absence spread across his face like frost silvering a windowpane. For an instant he could have wept with despair, the impression was charged with such violent emotion. It was like this afternoon in the nursery, when everything had seemed so sharp-edged, so significant and real. Everything such a lush riot of sensation. Gravel turning under the soft feet of that little white cat. The colors of the blooming shrubs in the first greenhouse, the almost unendurably sweet smell of the blooming viburnum he hadn't bought.

But thinking back on the afternoon, he was startled by how brittle his memories were. Flat and sheer, despite their richness. As though their very intensity, in fact, were a sign that it was all nothing but an elaborate façade - a cunning trompe l'oeil that was more beautiful than the reality it aped.

Something turned over in Blair's mind. You know, despite the illusion of life and depth, maybe it wasn't any more real than the painted canvas backdrop at the back of a stage. He wondered, suddenly and insanely, what he would have to do to get a peek around the backdrop.

Or maybe, maybe he'd been able to see past it all along.

He reached out and knotted his fist hard in the collar of Jim's robe. "Tell me what's up with your senses, man. Please."

Jim smiled down at the clenched fist. "Afraid I'm gonna be going somewhere without you, Chief?"

"Just making sure you don't," he told Jim, and didn't let go.

"OK," Jim said, in his humoring-the-crazy-person voice, but his eyes were still gentle. "You're right, Sandburg. It must be what's going on in my head. All the emotions tied up in this case. I thought I was detached enough to work with it, but I guess that's not true."

Blair nodded, mute encouragement for Jim to go on.

"It's like I'm still there," Jim finished quietly. "I can't get away."

"Away from the Gwen's house?" Blair asked. "From the bedroom?"

Jim started to nod. "Sort of, yeah. It's --" He gestured with one hand in front of his face, as though trying to clear a mist. He dropped his hand almost at once, accepting the futility of it. "I can still smell the blood and everything else."

Everything else. Blair thought he knew what that meant. All the smells of a human body torn open the way Gwen and Trish's had been. He could have wept for Jim, but he swallowed hard, and only said what he hoped could help. "How strong -- um, how intense, I guess, does it seem? Like the bodies are actually close by, right now?"

Jim thought about the question for a moment before he answered. "No," he said at last. "No, it's more subtle. When I concentrate on it, I can tell it's just a ghost. But when I think about something else, it creeps up on me again. Before I know it, it's just like last night." He reached up and put his hand over Blair's fist, where Blair was still gripping the collar of his bathrobe. "When we were standing by Fred Angelone's car."

"Right," Blair said softly. "I know. I remember. When you smelled the blood on the surgical scrubs. That was incredible, the way you were able to focus past all the blood in the house to pick up a scent all the way down the block."

Jim didn't look like he thought it was so incredible. His face was as gray as his bathrobe. He worked his fingers under Blair's clenched fist and gently, but inexorably pried Blair's fingers up, freeing himself.

"OK, Jim," Blair said, talking faster, worried now that Jim really was going to get up and walk away. "OK, I think I understand what's going on. Last night everything was turned up as far as it would go. You were in the middle of the investigation, adrenaline pumping, all that emotion -- you were tuned in, man, everything on red alert. All that's happening now is that you haven't re-set the dials yet. There's probably, I don't know, a few molecules stuck to your nose hairs or something." Blair grinned, slightly frantic. "And you're so online you can't stop smelling them. I know it's awful for you, it must make you feel like you're out of control, but really, it's nothing we haven't been through before, right? We can deal with this together."

"Sandburg --"

"Listen to me Jim, you're all worried that being focussed on something you were smelling a day ago means you might miss something you come across right now, but that's crazy. You're the one always telling me that you were a good cop before your senses came back, and I know that's true. Besides, it's not like your senses are totally out of whack. If you'll just calm down, let me work with you here together, we can --"

"No."

"What are you talking about 'no'? Come on, calm down and give me a chance here. I don't think you're even listening to me. This problem with your senses is no reason to quit the case. In fact, really, if you think about it, it could be an advantage to be so sensitive right now. All we need to do is work on redirecting your focus a little. It's nothing we haven't done before, Jim, you know that."

"Not this time, " Jim answered in a voice that was as calm and implacable as a hard snowfall during the night, the way it turned a once-familiar landscape so white and silent and strange.

"Jim," Blair said, hearing the tremor in his voice. "Jim, I don't understand."

"We're not going to be working on this, because I'm not going to be on this case anymore."

"You said that already. But this thing with your senses is not the end of the world. I can help you, I know I can."

"I believe you," Jim said softly. "But I don't want you to. That's why I'm quitting."

Oh. Well, that explained it then. Everything made perfect sense now. Jim was quitting because he was having trouble with his senses, and there was no one who could help. It was just like the Switchman bombings all over again, only this time there was no one to guide him, because Jim didn't want Blair's help.

And that was because his erstwhile partner had finally gone off the deep end.

"This case," Blair said, and was pleased at how steady his voice was, now that he'd figured everything out. "You think it's too much for me."

Jim was gentle with him, but he didn't try to guild the truth. "It is too much for you, Chief."

"Because I'm seeing things?" he asked bluntly.

Jim studied his face, and after a moment, gave a short, tight nod. "Nightmares - sleepwalking - Sandburg, I know it all seems real tonight." He hesitated, as though he expected Blair to jump in with some sort of protest, but Blair held his tongue, and it was Jim who finally said, "And you're right, in a way. It is real. That's why we're both going to step back from this case. You hearing me?"

Blair tried to manage some sort of a smile for Jim. "Yeah, man, I hear you." He bent forward over his knee and picked up the icepack and the towel. "Guess I'll be getting back to bed. I'm pretty tired."

Jim took the ice from him, startled. "Do you need a hand?"

"Nah, I'm fine." Blair put his foot on the floor and cautiously stood. It wasn't too bad until he tried to put his weight on it. "Aww, shit."

"Careful." Jim was right beside him. Blair braced himself for a moment, hanging on to Jim's forearm until the smeared, red blot of pain faded. OK, there. It wasn't that bad. He could hobble on the ball of his foot just fine.

"I got it," he said. "Sorry about getting you up." He limped to his room, shutting his bedroom door behind himself. Goddammit, not like there wasn't enough going on tonight without having to worry about his stupid toe. It felt as though it had swollen to about fifty times normal size. Feeling like he had a huge, red, hurting helium balloon stapled to his foot, he crawled into bed and stretched out on his back. Even the weight of the comforter was painful so he sat up again, groaning, and flipped back the corner to bare his foot. That was better, except now his foot was cold. Be a block of ice by morning. He rolled his head to the side. Light still filtered past the curtains on the door and bled in a pale yellow square around the blinds in the inner window. He imagined Jim making those lonely rounds by himself, locking the front door, pouring the two beers they hadn't drunk down the sink and rinsing out the bottles, turning out the lights, then climbing the stairs to bed. The reek of violent death would be dogging him every step of the way.

Blair realized he had knotted his hands into fists around the sheet, and he made himself let go. He heard a wet sort of clatter in the sink. Oh, he realized after a moment. The cubes from the icepack. He'd forgotten about those. Everything else went just as he'd imagined it. He heard water running, then the muffled clank of Jim stacking the beer bottles into the recycle bin.

There was the deadbolt being locked, and then, at last, the quiet sound of Jim ascending the stairs. One step squeaked a little, four or five steps up, and then when he was overhead, Blair heard the board near the head of Jim's bed that creaked when he stepped on it just the right way. Blair opened his eyes again. The lights were out now. He was alone in the darkness, but he didn't use his deep breathing to calm himself. He knew Jim would be listening, whether he meant to or not. Blair doubted Jim could help himself at times like this. Blair wasn't having a real easy time of it himself, come to think of it.

Mind over matter, Blair thought determinedly. He closed his eyes and made his way slowly across the borders of sleep, back to the blind cavern under the hill where water cascaded in darkness like a rope of stars binding heaven to earth.

    
****

16: curitiba, parana, brazil (10 years ago)

 

"The anthropologist is the less able to ignore his own civilization and to dissociate himself from its faults in that his very existence is incomprehensible except as an attempt at redemption: he is the symbol of atonement." Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques_

 

They didn't let him use the phone, and no one would explain to him why they were holding him here, or when he could leave, but at least nobody was hitting him. Blair sat at a chrome and formica table in a windowless room with a poured concrete floor that seemed to double as kitchen and interrogation chamber. There was a rusty refrigerator against one wall, and a low sink with the enamel worn off in long, dark smudges. The faucet was dripping. A bucket and mop were propped in the corner, the mop so mildewed he could smell it from across the room. The yellow formica on the table was peeling up, scratchy against his forearms, and his side was hurting him in this position, but he couldn't move to a more comfortable one because his hands were cuffed to a bolt of metal hammered through the center of the table. There were stains as dark as molé sauce or dried blood spattered across the formica.

The man sitting across from him wore a crisply starched shirt, and he was careful to keep his own dazzlingly white sleeves off the stained table. He spoke to Blair in English, asking if this were his first visit to Curitiba, and didn't Blair agree that the lava fields of the Sao Jeronymo Reserve were one of the great unspoiled wonders of the world?

Blair couldn't control his trembling, and his voice was just a whisper when he answered that yes, Sao Jeronymo was very beautiful.

There were two other men in the room. The same men who had fetched him from the cell. Probably two of the same men who had killed Hemisfereo and Orinoco. They were still wearing cotton sacks over their heads. Blair could occasionally see a flash of brown through the ragged eye holes, but it was hard for him to imagine that these butchers had eyes or faces at all. They were lounging against the back wall, murmuring to each other in voices too low for Blair to understand, obviously bored and out of sorts, sweat stains seeping across their khakis. The room was airless and hot. Blair felt trickles of sweat running down his own back, and trying to distract himself from his terror, he thought those two men must be half-suffocated with those cotton hoods over their heads.

"I didn't realize your father had such an interest in the Preserve," the man in the white shirt was saying.

"He didn't before, but he probably does now," Blair rasped, and then wondered if that had been a really stupid thing to say. His throat was so dry it hurt. "May I have a drink of water?"

"Yes, of course," said the other man politely, but he didn't get Blair anything to drink, and didn't gesture for either of the other two men in the room to do it either. "We're trying to contact your father now. I'm sure you'd like to speak to him."

Blair felt the hot flush of mingled fear and hope, and wondered if the man questioning him could see it.

"We're having some trouble getting through," the man in the white shirt explained, spreading his hands apologetically. "The phone lines to Sao Paulo may be down. But perhaps you have friends here that you would like us to contact for you?"

Blair could hardly breathe through the constriction of fear in his throat. Yes, he thought despairingly. Yes, please call the Glory of God Mission in the Tigaby village and tell anyone who answers the phone that I'm here, and they've hurt me, and please, come get me out of here, because I'm so damned scared.

"No," he breathed. "I don't know anyone else here. I want to talk to someone at the American embassy."

"You have no friends here at all?" The man raised one bushy salt-and pepper eyebrow and looked inquiringly at him.

Blair shook his head. "No," he insisted, hoping he wouldn't burst into tears as he said it. One of the men whose faces was masked straightened up, and Blair flinched, but he didn't so much as turn his head towards Blair. He simply crossed to the sink and turned the tap on. Water gushed into the basin with a hollow sound that soon became muffled as the basin filled. Blair wondered if he was going to get that drink of water at last.

"No one who you might consider a friend of your father, even?" His interrogator asked once more. "You're quite certain?"

"I'm certain," Blair said, tearing his eyes away from the surreal picture of the man with the covered face and the blood-stained clothes filling the sink with water as though he intended to wash a few breakfast dishes. Didn't look as though he were going to get his glass of water anyway. "I haven't done anything. I don't know anything. Please may I go now?"

The man reached out and patted Blair's face with paternal kindness. "We'll talk later."

Then he stood up and walked away. A brief, hot draft blew through the room when he opened the door, and a second, stronger one ruffled the hairs on the top of Blair's head when the door shut behind him. It was metal, just like the door of the cell where they had first held Blair, with a dirty glass inset over wire.

Blair looked down at his arms to avoid looking at the two men who were still in the room. He was trying not to think about what would happen next. He didn't know precisely what it would be, only that there was nothing he could do to stop it, and that he was so tired, and so afraid. He clenched his hands into fists, feeling the metal of the cuffs bite into his wrists. His side hurt so constantly he couldn't draw a deep breath. He probed carefully at his loose tooth with his tongue, still tasting blood in his mouth. Footsteps crossed the room to him, shuffling on the concrete floor, and he closed his eyes.

No good. The darkness was worse. He opened his eyes again and watched as one of the hooded men unlocked the handcuffs and threaded them back through the metal bolt in the formica table. The release made Blair's wrist ache, but when the man wrapped his callused, hot hand around Blair's forearm, the human touch, even under these circumstances, gave him a moment of hope.

"Please," Blair said as the hooded man pulled his hands around and cuffed them behind his back. The metal closing once more around his wrist hurt too. Blair raised his head, looking for the other man. He was standing behind Blair's left side, ready, as though Blair might suddenly make a run for it.

Or maybe he had no more illusions than Blair did about just how much resistance Blair was likely to offer. The nearer man put his hand under Blair's arm and tried to pull him to his feet, and when Blair couldn't manage it quickly enough on his own, his companion moved in and they dragged him up out of the chair together, supporting him when his knees buckled. Blair noticed, when he could breathe again, that his own eyes were level with the brown ones that flashed behind the hoods on either side of him. How strange. Last night in Orinoco's hut, back lit by the headlights, these men had seemed like such giants.

They pulled Blair across the room without speaking a word to him. Every step hurt and Blair's progress was painfully slow, but the two men didn't try to hurry him. Blair thought that was probably because it was too hot to make an unnecessary fuss about anything. The sink was full of water, a film of grease moving on its surface. The faucet was still dripping, and Blair saw his own face reflected back across the ripples. He felt his body fighting as the two men forced his head down, but it did not seem to have anything to do with him personally. After all, he was supposed to have died back there in the swamp with his friends, so how could it matter what happened to him now? He could smell the vegetable reek of the place still, and his head was filled with the roar of the night insects and the sound of Pastor Cleary's voice telling the congregation with a laugh that the Lord was ready for this one now. Blair's face broke the surface of the water, and eventually even his body stopped fighting.

   
****

17: casade washington (wednesday morning, before dawn)

Blair raised his head carefully, taking stock. He was crouched on the cold stone floor of the cavern under the cliff where the water ran out of the rock. He had been here before in dreams. He had been here before in the flesh. Jim had wanted him to forget, and for Jim's sake, he'd tried. He had tried as hard as he could, but it turned out he couldn't put it away forever.

His big toe was killing him. Felt like he'd stubbed the hell out of it.

Oh, Blair thought. He had. He'd been running up the stairs, trying to get to Jim, but now he couldn't remember if he had gotten there in time. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.   
__

I was running up the stairs, I remember that, I was running because Jim was in trouble. But did I get there in time? Is Jim all right?  


(Dammit!)

Blair hissed at the sudden pain. It wasn't his big toe hurting. It was his throat, hurting so bad he could hardly swallow his own spit. Which had to mean that he hadn't made it up the stairs in time, and Jim wasn't all right at all.

Blair lurched to his feet in sudden terror, one hand on his aching throat, his other outstretched, groping for the wall of the cavern. It had to be close, right behind him. He could feel the cold radiating off the face of the ancient granite, but no matter how he reached, his straining fingers couldn't touch it, and he screamed aloud at the sheer maddening unfairness of it. Why did everything have to be so damned difficult? Especially now. Oh god, especially now.

He stopped looking for the wall of stone behind him because it didn't matter. Nothing did. He was too late. He hadn't saved Jim at all, and the sounds Blair vomited out of his mouth when he realized that weren't even human anymore. They were animal shrieks of grief and hurt coming over and over again until the entire cavern was filled by them. He staggered into the blind vastness with his hands clenched against his forehead.

(Was that really how it had been?) Blair wondered in agonized bewilderment. He had just stood there and watched as the thing in bloody scrubs ran up the stairs and found Jim sleeping? It was, oh lord help him, it was, it must have been, because he could smell the blood in his memory and see the glint of gardening tools that nobody had ever used to turn the soil. And then he heard the sounds, too late, oh too damned late, and he was running --

He still didn't have it right. Something was wrong with his memory, because when he concentrated the figure on the stairs changed and dwindled, collapsing in upon itself. Four-legged and fish-belly white, bounding from stair to stair, and the mere sight of it had blasted him with awe. This was not his world. This was not his place in it. He did not have to accept this. Jim had said so himself.  
__

"Blair, visions like the one you had have changed the course of history, uprooted civilizations, formed the basis of entire cultures ... but I just think you should ask yourself how likely it is that the Cherokee Immortals emerged from the great beyond simply to tell one Blair Sandburg to drop out of grad school. Just seems to me like they'd have better things to do."  


Jim was probably right about that. That wasn't what they had meant to tell him at all. Blair had simply gotten the message wrong. And it wasn't his throat hurting, either, it was a sluggish liquid fire burning up his arm and spreading through his veins. He could feel the rubber cord knotted painfully around his biceps, but when he put his hand over his arm, he touched nothing but his own bare flesh. He felt the sting of a phantom needle too, hurting him as it pushed deeper and deeper, and he slapped at his arm in growing panic, then stumbled to his knees. Worse than the dark heat lapping in his belly was the certainty that he'd gotten it so wrong, made the worst possible choice. He'd wanted to help Jim, and how had he gone about it? Lied to Jim, permitted the stone walls to close behind him while he drugged himself with poison. The vine of souls denatured. No wonder it had nearly killed him.  
__

"He wants to know if you're going to be my spiritual guide in the city."  


And no wonder Incacha had laughed.  
__

"Tell him ... he learns from me, I learn from him -- it's more like a partnership."  


Hell of a partnership. He had left Jim behind in the storm and come here alone. That couldn't be right, he knew that. "Jim," he whispered. "Jim."

His screams and cries had not broken the silence, but Jim's name, breathed out like a sigh, finally did. The quiet dark which had enfolded Blair began to recede, and he heard once more the white splash of water as it emerged from ancient stone, frothed bubbling and sharp upon the smooth rock and then rushed away to the very center of the world.

Blair shook his head muzzily. He felt like he was trying to clear the cobwebs after a long and difficult sleep, one of those afternoon naps that unexpectedly last clear through to the next morning. Soft lights danced in the periphery of his vision. He had risen, though he did not remember getting up, and the sound of the water was becoming clearer and sweeter to him. He could hear, Jim-like, the shattering of every droplet on the rocks below. The water shone in the darkness, a silvery rope with a thousand filaments, and he drifted closer. The lights fluttering around his head had become as brilliant as butterflies. He saw flashes of hue so beautiful they made him want to weep, red and orange and gold and green and a shade of blue more luminous than a calm sea in the noonday sun, as clear as Jim's blue eyes. He heard a sound above the rushing water like wings beating, and Blair followed, guided by a rope of stars that arched from the Milky Way, through the shadowlands of middle earth, to find its knotted end in hell. As he rose, he turned to look back at his crumpled body. He expected to see that he had left it in the cave, but instead he gazed down at the shadow of himself in his own bed, still sleeping on his back, one foot sticking out from under the covers.

He passed through his bedroom ceiling, up through the floor of the loft where Jim lay sleeping too. Jim was curled on his side in a tangle of yellow and blue linens, one hand bunched into a fist beside his face. His eyes were squeezed shut, as though that could possibly keep him from seeing the dark things haunting his dreams tonight. His face was tense with a sort of restless unease, and he was breathing in short, shallow gasps. Blair put out his hand, wanting desperately to take the bad dreams away and leave nothing but peace in their stead. Jim's face was warm under Blair's fingertips, his cheeks wet with tears or sweat, and at Blair's touch, his clenched fist fell open. His next breath was an easier one, his chest rising slowly.

Blair stroked Jim's face and told him, "Rest, Jim. I'll be back soon." The roar of the water filled his ears, but Blair remained until Jim's sleeping face relaxed into something like a smile. The tense coil of Jim's body slowly let go, and he rolled onto his back with a sigh, pushing the tangled sheets down and away from himself as he straightened his legs. One arm curled behind his head, and the other dropped onto his stomach. Jim's chest rose in another deep, long breath, lifting the hand that lay on his stomach. Blair pressed his lips to Jim's forehead in benediction and promise, before the pressure at his back finally swept him up and out into the sky.

It was nearly dawn, and as Blair soared upwards, he could see the dull, dark globe of the sun lurking sullenly at the horizon. Around him the stars were bright and beautiful, but his life was below, in the colorless city of the world. Everything was gray and flat and indistinct. The living and the dead, everyone Blair had ever known in this life, all of them were shuffling through the streets together. They walked with their faces down, too intent upon their phantom concerns to ever once glance up to the vault of heaven. Blair watched for a time, amazed to think he was just another of those dull ones, he and Jim and Naomi and every other bright spirit he had over loved. He wanted to shout aloud to them, but when he opened his mouth to speak, birds with shining feathers emerged instead of sound and scattered across the night sky, flying away from him until they were indistinguishable from the stars. He desperately wanted to follow, the urge burning in him like lust, but in the end, it was not really so hard to turn away. His place was in the shadows still, despite the bright reality beyond.

Besides, he'd promised Jim he would be right back.

He fell with numbing speed, the shadows rushing to claim him so eagerly he was astounded he had ever escaped them at all. The packed cotton batting in the futon was hard under his back. Man, he had to replace that -- maybe he could borrow the truck from Jim after he got next month's paycheck and go to one of those discount furniture places off Wilmington. Probably find a new one for under a hundred bucks, and it'd be worth it if it saved his back. And while he was borrowing the truck, he might as well borrow Jim too. No way he could wrestle the mattress up the stairs by himself. He smiled briefly, then felt the tears trickling down his face. He raised his hand and brushed them away, and realized his big toe was hurting, that Gwen Angelone and her mother were dead, and less importantly, that the world was not the same place it had been when he had gone to sleep a few hours before. He threw back the comforter and sat up in bed. Silvery pre-dawn light glimmered cold in his room. He stood cautiously, aggravated by how sore his stubbed toe was, and limped out of his bedroom. Jim wasn't up yet. Blair hesitated for a moment, hating to disturb Jim's rest when they had both gotten so little sleep last night. He finally decided this couldn't wait, not even another half hour or so when Jim's alarm would go off anyway.

He made his way up the stairs slowly, trying to be quiet for all the good it would do. He was certain Jim would hear him, and his sore toe made him so clumsy every last step seemed to creak under his weight. But when he was high enough to see Jim's bed, he found Jim was still asleep after all. He was sprawled defenselessly on his back, the sheets tangled around his knees. His flesh was alabaster in the gray light, shadows defining the muscles in his arms and chest, lying dark in the hollow of his throat, tracing the fine planes of his peaceful face.

Jim didn't awaken until Blair had reached his bedside. Then he opened his eyes calmly, and their blue was the only color in the whole room. "Chief?" he said.

Blair sat down on the edge of the bed, bending forward enough to put his hand on Jim's shoulder. "Jim," he said, surprised to hear his voice crack, when Jim's voice had been so calm. "I think we need to talk."

 

   
****

18\. curitiba, parana, brazil (ten years ago) 

 

"He is an anthropologist, and chose to become one; he must therefore accept the mutilation inseparable from his vocation. He has preferred other societies and must suffer the consequences of his preference: his function will be simply to understand these other societies, in whose name he is unable to act."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques_

 

 "Can you stand up?"

Blair knew that voice. He tried to retreat from it, but the voice followed him, cruel in its insistence. "We do not have time for complications or difficulties. You have to help me."

Blair opened his eyes. His nose and throat were burning. There was an ache low in his chest that discouraged him from trying to breathe too deeply, and a pain in his side that thrust sharp and deep in time with his heartbeat. He was lying on a concrete floor, grit under his cheek. His face was wet, as well as his hair. He smelled of stale dishwater and cooking grease.

"Please," said the voice, more softly. "If you can get up now, I think they will let you walk out of here, but Lt. Joao is liable to change his mind at any moment." A gentle hand brushed his face, callused fingers drawing a light touch across his cheek. "And if he changes his mind about you, my boy, he's not likely to let me go either."  
__

Oh damn, Blair thought_. No more lives on my head. I'm so tired of this now_. Couldn't they all just leave him alone? He closed his eyes, but the other one didn't leave. Instead he put his hand under Blair's shoulder and tugged at him, trying to pull him up.

"I know you can hear me," he said. Another hand slipped under Blair's cheek, lifting his face off the floor, and Blair opened his eyes once more, seeing the rough cotton weave of the other's sleeve. The hand under his face was so gentle that Blair felt tears begin to fall painlessly, rolling sideways down his face over the bridge of his nose. Seemed ridiculous to be crying. Anyone would think he'd have had more than enough of water by now.

"I don't want to die, young man, and neither do you. Come on. Sit up."

Blair sat up, pushing himself up with one hand on the floor. He heard the sounds he made as he did it, so loud they almost drowned out the quiet encouragements from the other man. He was unexpectedly strong, firm hands on Blair's shoulders easing him up, then holding him when the movement made Blair begin to cough. The pain was so black and hot he was afraid he was going to faint, but he opened his eyes and looked into Br. Marcus' face instead, and only nodded when Marcus said, "We're going to stand up now."

Marcus' broad face was set and stern, only his deep-set eyes betraying his emotion. His short curling gray hairs were plastered to his forehead. "And don't pass out," he murmured to Blair. "Or we'll never get out of here."

Blair was lightheaded and sick with pain, and he could still glimpse from the corner of his eye flashes of the same bright things he had seen when they held his head under water. Over and over again, until the moment when the desire to breathe overwhelmed whatever was left of rational thought. He thought he knew what Marcus was really asking him to do. Don't look anymore. Don't listen to the sounds -- running water and a hollow, breathy note that rang within, marrow deep.

He looked into Marcus' eyes, trying to focus long enough to make a decision. It was a lot to ask of him, but even in this state he understood the risk the monk had taken by coming here for him. All for a kid he'd met once and tried to warn. "I'm sorry," Blair whispered. He grabbed Marcus' forearms and held on hard, bracing himself so Marcus could help drag him to his feet. He coughed again and staggered, but Marcus had him now and was able to support him until the blackness retreated once more. When he could see again, he realized he was still in the kitchen. The hooded men were nowhere to be seen. The only other person in the room was a policia in a stained khaki uniform standing near the open door. Blair stared at him as Marcus wrapped his arm around Blair's back, his hand under Blair's shoulder, and urged him to take a step. Water was still running down the back of Blair's neck and down his face and throat.

As they made their slow way past the policia, Blair saw that his sleeves were wet past the elbow. Marcus blessed the man, and the policia said "Thank you, Brother," as he shut the door after them. Blair tried to watch where they were going, thinking that it was important to see everything, remember as much as he could, but the images slipped past like water rushing by stones in the river. He could smell stale coffee and the musty odor of old paperwork. A phone was ringing monotonously in another room. A typewriter clattered, stopped, then clattered again. Someone must have opened a door for them then, because a hot rectangle of sunlight slid over his bruised face, and Blair winced against it, feeling the heat and light like another blow.

"Just a few more steps," Marcus promised. He gathered Blair closer as they made their way across the last threshold, and braced him when Blair staggered under the impact of the open street. Loud, staticky music was playing nearby. Dogs were barking. Smells were heavy and thick in the hot midmorning air, gasoline, sewage, fried meat, diesel fumes, overripe fruit. A woman's voice was talking, loud and insistent, laughing. "O que os olhos no vem o cora o no sente," she said, shouting the old proverb with an air of settling the argument.   
__

What the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't suffer.   


Blair's head was pressed hard against Marcus' chest, his eyes closed, but he opened them at that, even though the sunlight hurt. The street underfoot was broken cement patched with asphalt, and Marcus had to half-lift him over the gutter running down the center of the street. Blair clenched his jaw against a scream. He couldn't even take a deep breath for fear of coughing again.

"It's all right," Marcus said quietly. A car was coming down the street towards them, Blair could hear it. "That's our ride, young man. Just keep walking, just another few steps --"

"No," Blair whispered, and then moaned in fury as he felt another cough claw its way up his throat. It doubled him over when it escaped, despite Marcus' attempt to hold him upright. His knees were on the concrete, and Marcus was trying to pull him up again, but it hurt so badly, and he was so tired, and everything was so wrong. "No," he hissed again, every cough a sledgehammer smashing against his chest and side. "Marcus, PLEASE."

He heard the engine idling, but he couldn't see it because his eyes were screwed shut against the pain. "Marcus, thank the Lord," said a voice Blair didn't know, and then there were more hands on him, hauling him upright.

Blair made himself open his eyes, swinging his head around to stare into a stranger's gray eyes. "No," he told the other man, since Marcus wouldn't listen. "There are other people in there. Kids younger than me. We have to help them."

"They're in God's hands, now," said the second man, just as implacable as Marcus. He put his palm on Blair's forehead for a moment, then let him go and pulled open the back door of a battered white VW van, patches of rust blooming red across the white paint. Naomi had driven one just like it for years. Blair stopped resisting, and allowed the two monks to lift him in. Marcus got in with him and helped him to the bench seat in back, cracked gray vinyl just like Naomi's van had been too. He heard the door slam behind them.

"We've got a long ride ahead of us," Marcus said. "Do you think you can make it?" Blair wondered vaguely why Marcus was bothering to ask. It wasn't as though he had any choice in the matter. He sat back against the seat slowly, feeling every change in position as though his ribs were teeth in a gear. Marcus sat beside him, his hand on Blair's shoulder as the van began to move. His voice was very gentle. "I mean, I would rather not stop for a doctor until we get to Paranagua."

All right, Blair thought, not knowing whether he had answered out loud or not. He turned his head to watch the world slide past. White stucco. Yellow brick. Shop signs advertising Coca-cola. The side of a red bus. The pavement was rough, and every pothole hurt as the van bounced over them. "Would it help to lie down?" Marcus asked.

Blair shook his head and whispered, "They're dead. Orinoco and Hemisfereo. They killed them. I'm so sorry."

"Blair," Marcus said. "Listen to me."

He didn't want to. In his shame he didn't even want to look at Marcus, but the monk put his hand on Blair's face and carefully turned his head so that he had no choice. "Orinoco isn't dead. Some of the brothers are taking him and his wife and granddaughter to Mato Grosso. "

Blair stared at him. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, starting to cough again, but he clung to Marcus, shaking and gasping until the worst of it passed and he could tell Marcus the rest. "They shot him. I was right there. They shot him -- and drove us out into the jungle -- and they shot Hemisfereo and threw them into the water -- Marcus, they were going to kill me too, but I didn't want to die."

Marcus said, "Be quiet. Listen to me." He put his fingers over Blair's mouth to silence him, and when he took his hand away, his fingers were red with blood from Blair's split lip. "Lt. Joao's men have been using that place as a dumping ground for months. Orinoco had managed to get to shore by the time Maria Amelia and I got there. He's a tough old man, Blair. I think he has a good chance of making it."

"Hemisfereo?" Blair asked softly. He knew it was impossible, but there had been so many impossible things tonight. He had been wrong about so much. Please, just one more miracle. Surely that wasn't too much to ask.

"His soul is at peace, Blair."

"No," Blair said. It hurt all over again, worse than ever. "No, Marcus, please, it was so stupid. I told them my father was the American ambassador. That's the only reason they didn't kill me too."

"Oh my dear young man," Marcus' face crinkled into the saddest smile Blair had ever seen. "So that's why Joao let us go. He must have been trying to figure out if anyone knew where you were and what had happened to you." Marcus brushed his hand over Blair's wet hair. "Then I show up asking about an American boy and he panicked. Do you know what he told me? That you had been attacked by bandits and didn't remember your own name."

Blair hissed in anger and despair. "It's not true. You know it's not true. We have to make somebody listen."

"No," Marcus said. "The only thing we have to do is get you as far away as we can before Joao finds out you made a fool of him."

Blair half turned, despite the pain, and wrapped both fists in the front of Marcus' robe. Why was it so hard to make him understand this? He was a man of God, for pity's sake. "But it isn't right. It isn't fair."

He wanted an argument or an explanation, but Marcus only said, "I know."

"You don't understand," Blair insisted. "I saw everything." He let Marcus go and put one hand over his own heart, trying to contain the ache. "I'm still seeing it."

Marcus didn't answer. He only watched Blair with patient grief, and when Blair's head dropped, he pulled him forward until his head came to rest against his chest, and held Blair while he wept.

   
****

19\. cascade washington (5:40 wednesday morning)

Jim had been dreaming such dreams. They clung to him still as he opened his eyes to find Blair at his bedside. "Chief." Blair had been in his dreams, hadn't he? But his memory of them slipped away even as he tried to claim them.

"We need to talk," Blair was saying, his voice hoarse with sleep. The mattress yielded under Blair's weight as he crawled on the bed and put his hand on Jim's shoulder.

Talk. All right. When Blair was around, there usually was something that needed talking about. "OK," Jim agreed drowsily. He could feel a faint headache building from the back of his scalp, and the faintest tingle of a crick on the right side of his neck. Sandburg smelled of sleep, the warm-under-the-blanket scent of Blair just out of bed in the morning, his hair mussed and a little sweaty from the pillow, a faint musk of perspiration between his legs and under his arms. Blair started to lift his hand from Jim's shoulder, but Jim caught him, wrapping his own fingers around Blair's palm and drawing their hands down together to rest on his chest. He wanted to keep Blair near because the slaughterhouse reek was here as well, faint, but as close as it had been from the beginning. Scenting it around the corners of Blair's life made him feel weak with despair, and it was too damned early in the morning for that. He had to resist the urge to drag Blair down to him, because he thought perhaps he could lose the smell of death by burying his face in Blair's hair. "What time is it?" he asked Blair instead.

Blair smiled down at their clasped hands and Jim wondered, as he often did, just how much Blair knew about what he was thinking. Usually safest to assume that Blair knew everything. "Beats me," Blair said. He turned his head to look at the clock on the nightstand, his hair slipping over his shoulder and hiding his face. When he looked back at Jim he tucked his hair back behind his ear with his opposite hand, so he didn't have to free his hand from Jim's hold. "About twenty till six, looks like."

"How's your toe feel?"

"Sore. Don't ask me how I'm going to get a shoe on it."

"Probably would have been a good idea to keep ice on it a little longer last night," Jim said, wondering if this was really the conversation Blair wanted to be having at this hour of the morning.

"Yeah, I know, you told me. Guess my head wasn't screwed on too straight last night." Blair was watching him as though expecting an agreement from Jim, or more probably, some sort of a confession that Jim hadn't been thinking too clearly either. Jim couldn't give it to him, though. After a few hours of sleep he knew more certainly than ever that he'd made the right decision. He had no place investigating the Angelone murders. Not when they had hit Sandburg so hard.

Hit _Sandburg_ so hard? Come off it. Blair was handling things as well as ninety percent of the veterans on the force. He would bet even Simon'd had some pretty grisly nightmares last night. The truth of the matter was Jim couldn't handle it. He wasn't in control. There had been something wrong from the very start in this investigation, and the lingering reek of death was only a symptom of something much worse. Whatever it was, Jim knew he had already let Sandburg get much too close.

Blair was still smiling down at him. His hand was open under Jim's, fingers spread warmly across Jim's chest. Jim was thinking about yesterday morning at the Angelone house. He had used Blair's touch and Blair's presence over and over again to keep himself from being lost in that miasma of blood and violent death, and now he couldn't shake the conviction that he'd been drawing Blair deeper each time he reached out for him, like a drowning man pulling his would-be rescuer under the waves in his panic.

It made no sense. Blair said he could handle this case, and although last night's nightmares and sleepwalking bothered Jim, they weren't any reason, really, to take such drastic measures. Blair had been dealing with blood and mayhem since the Switchman case -- what made this so different? He couldn't explain it to himself, and when he pressed, trying to make his way through the veil, he was stopped time and again by that image of Blair. It was an image he thought he understood. Just the old fear, surely, that one day Blair wouldn't duck fast enough, that Jim wouldn't be there to knock him out of the way of the bullet. But this was more stark, darker, and it wasn't going away, even with his decision to drop the case.  
__

(oh damn)  


Jim shut his eyes against the image when he realized he had summoned it once again, but of course that just made it clearer than ever. Blair, not dead, though he should have been, standing before Jim with his hands crossed over the gaping blackness in his naked breast. Just like Gwen and Trish, their hearts torn from their bodies. The reek of blood was everywhere, and still Blair insisted on keeping his hands crossed over his chest, as though that could hide the unspeakable truth from Jim. The vision had been hovering on the edges of Jim's consciousness all along -- he thought he had caught the first glimpse even before they reached the Angelone house.

"Hey," Blair's voice was softly amused. "You falling asleep on me?"

Jim opened his eyes quickly, trying to blink away the darkness "No," he said hoarsely.

"So you still planning to ask Simon to reassign you?"

"Yes," Jim said, and then, in a futile attempt to deflect whatever arguments Blair had no doubt been marshalling all night, went on, "There's nothing to talk about. Go back to bed, Chief. You could get in a couple more hours sleep before you have to go in to school."

Blair smiled again, and Jim realized he was still holding Blair's hand pressed to his own chest, and he belatedly let go. Grinning, Blair trailed his fingertips up Jim's throat and flicked his chin. "Gotcha." Jim tried to bat him away and Blair pulled his hands back in mock surrender for a moment, but then he planted his fist on the bed near Jim's side and looked at him seriously. The right side of Blair's face was still flushed from the pillow, a wrinkle on the pillowcase showing on his cheek. "How'd you sleep last night?" Blair asked.

"You wake me up half an hour before the alarm to ask that?"

"I really wish you'd think about this, man. I don't think dropping the case will help anything. It won't make whatever it is that you're so scared of go away, and it sure won't catch the guy who did it any faster."

"You're probably right." No point in arguing about it, anyway.

"But you haven't changed your mind, have you?"

Jim shook his head, rolling it carefully on the pillow to avoid aggravating his incipient headache.

"OK," Blair said, suspiciously agreeable. He leaned over Jim and grabbed a free pillow. He was still wearing the unbuttoned flannel shirt he'd had on when he went limping to bed last night, and the ends trailed over Jim's belly. He dropped the pillow beside Jim's head, and stretched out on his side next to Jim, one arm doubled up under the pillow, so close his elbow brushed Jim's shoulder. "There's something I want to ask you about Incacha," he announced.

Jim rolled his head to the side and looked at him. "Incacha?"

"Right," Blair agreed, seeming to see nothing odd about the circumstances or the conversation. "Even with all the stuff you've told me, Jim, and everything I've been able to read, there's still a lot I just don't know. Elizabeth Broussard's gonna be a guest lecturer at the University of Seattle starting next fall, and I've been planning to go up and talk to her then, but I'm thinking now I should have gone ahead and flown out to Georgetown as soon as I heard she was in the states."

Jim blinked. "Is this what passes for pillow talk in your world, Sandburg?"

Blair grinned at him for a quick instant. "Come on, I know, I've mentioned her to you before. She lived with the Chopec for almost six years before the Shining Path moved into the area. The only person besides you who even spent close to that much time was this French guy back in the thirties, and they weren't clued in at all yet about how important ayahuasca visions really were to Chopec cosmography back then."

He broke off and looked at Jim expectantly until Jim finally gave in and said, in some bewilderment, "Are you asking me a question?"

"Well, yeah, sort of," Blair seemed faintly disappointed. "See, what it looks like to me is the Chopec view of reality has a lot in common with other, better documented tribes, like the Huichol and the Jivaro."

"I wouldn't know. That's your field, Chief." How did you talk about a view of reality anyway? Things did, or did not exist. The fact that he was having a little trouble these days telling the difference was reason enough to let someone else handle the Angelone case.

"No, I think you do know," Blair said earnestly. "How did you get your Chopec name, anyway?"

"Incacha gave it to me."

"I know, but how did he get it? He didn't just make it up out of the air, did he?

That's exactly how he got it, Jim thought, but he didn't say it out loud. It seemed somehow disrespectful to his memory of Incacha.

Incacha had been too weak to rise from his bed after three days of sickness and fasting, dosing himself repeatedly until Jim had begun to worry that the young shaman wouldn't survive his quest. At length he had come swimming back out of the seas of hallucination to grasp Jim's arm and tell him, ecstatically, that he was Enqueri. It was as though Jim had not truly existed for him until that moment, the joy shining out of his flashing brown eyes so much like Blair's that Jim felt the ache of his loss again like a physical pain. How alike they were, after all. Both men so foolishly eager to face death on his behalf, and why? To give Jim Ellison meaning, existence, purpose. A name. Enqueri. Sentinel. "Blair, listen to me," he said, instead of answering Blair's question. "Whatever's going on here, I don't want you involved. It's not worth it. Not this time."

"Hey, come on, take it easy," Blair said. He nudged Jim's shoulder with his elbow. "I'm not talking about the investigation. Just wanna ask you a simple question is all."

Jim wondered if Blair even believed that himself.

"Incacha went looking for that name, right? He ate or drank the extract from Banisteriopsis or Diploterys cabrerana or something related, and it made him see visions. Hallucinate. That's when he came up with your name, right? It came to him while he was having vivid hallucinations."

"Yes." Jim rolled his head back and looked at the ceiling. "Incacha told me that a man with green feathers on his back and a beak instead of a mouth came down out of the sky and gave him my true name."

"See, that's what I'm talking about," Blair insisted. "And that was absolutely real to Incacha, wasn't it? Even more real than the physical world."

"It was more important to him," Jim agreed quietly. "He was willing to die to see it."

"And that's exactly what I mean, Jim. That's the whole deal. For people like the Chopec, those hallucinations weren't hallucinations at all. Incacha believed he was seeing a real place and talking to the beings who actually lived there. Whatever you wanna call that place, heaven, hell, the spirit plane, whatever -- it's absolutely real to them, it intersects the physical world and affects the stuff that happens here -- in lots of ways it's even more important than our world. It's like the ordinary, waking world is the dream, and not the other way around. I'm just extrapolating from what I know about other tribes, but I'm right, aren't I? It was that way for Incacha, wasn't it? "

"Yes," Jim said warily. He was beginning to see, he thought, where Blair was headed with this, and it wasn't anywhere Jim wanted to go. He also knew he'd have an easier time stopping a runaway train than deflecting Blair Sandburg once he'd made up his mind about something.

Sighing, he stared up at the ceiling, and quietly told Blair what he thought Blair wanted to know.

"It was mostly during times of crisis for the Chopec. There were a lot of those while I was with them. The guerilla fighting in the area had interrupted the movement of game, and food could get pretty scarce. There were intermittent skirmishes with the Huni Kui, their ancestral enemies. And then nearly a quarter of the tribe was lost during an epidemic before I'd even been there two months." The memories came flooding back as they always did when Blair pushed at the barriers, less of a shock than in the early days of remembrance, but still overwhelming in their immensity. He remembered Incacha singing the death chant for his wife and daughter, both taken by the sickness within a few hours of each other. Jim had been huddling away from the fire, feverish himself, and wondering, with a sort of stupefied, guilty horror, if he might have been the carrier. Incacha's song was a low, constant groan, so piercing Jim had been able to feel it vibrating in the bones of his face.

He turned his head to look at Blair again, pulling himself back to the present with the sight of him. Blair was still curled on his side, his fist was over his mouth and the side of his index finger pressed hard against his upper lip. His eyes were rapt.

"Incacha would make a kind of thick tea from a vine they called nixi honi," Jim went on, reluctantly. "Vision vine. The preparation would take as long as three or four days, finding the vine, scraping the bark from it, macerating the bark in water, reducing it over the fire for hours at a time. Then when it was finally ready Incacha would drink it, and keep drinking it until he found the answer he and the tribe were looking for. He'd be sick as a dog-- " Jim found himself trailing off for a moment as another memory came to him. "Sick as you were, Chief." He heard how soft his voice had grown. His responses were still slow this morning -- not enough sleep, he supposed -- and he felt so vulnerable with these old memories churning in his belly. "As sick as you got when you let that quack friend of yours in New Hope give you yage."

"Right," Blair said, his voice sounding strained. "That would be typical. There are a lot of physiologically active chemicals in yage or ayahuasca besides the harmaline and DMT." His eyes, so eager before, dimmed suddenly, and his mouth twisted, as though he too were trying to clamp down on grief before it could escape him. "It's part and parcel of the experience, Jim." He was very quiet now, and no longer meeting Jim's eyes. "The shaman gets so sick he feels like he's dying. It frees his spirit for the soul flight into the next world." Blair forced himself to smile, then, and when he did, a single tear escaped. "That's why I was so scared when Incacha passed the way of the shaman on to me. Can you blame me, man?"

Oh no. Oh no, runaway train or not, they were not going there. Jim abruptly sat up in bed. "You're wrong, Blair. You've got this absolutely wrong. Incacha understood how different your life was from his. He never meant for you to follow his path so closely. He freed me from my responsibility to the Chopec. He didn't intend to bind you."

"He didn't have to." Blair was still curled on his side, looking up at Jim with eyes that were almost black in the predawn light. "He knew I already understood."

"All right, stop," Jim said. "Just stop it right there. Whatever lunatic idea you're cooking up in those addled brains of yours, you're going to forget it right now. You are not Chopec. Incacha's way is not your way. For chrissakes, I'd expect an anthropologist of all people to know that. You try doping yourself the way Incacha did, and the only vision you're going to see is the inside of an emergency room."

Blair grinned. "Threats, tough guy?"

"Dammit, Sandburg, don't you remember what yage did to you? What the golden did? I'm not spending another night at your hospital bed listening to the ventilator breathe for you. Nothing is worth that. Nothing."

"Hey wait, I'm sorry." Blair sat up quickly. "I'm sorry. I'm with you here."

Jim closed his eyes. He couldn't seem to think when he was looking Blair in the face this morning. Or maybe he was thinking all too clearly. Blair's hand was still warm on his forearm, and Jim covered Blair's hand with his own, his eyes still closed. "Then you want to explain why you woke me up at this hour of the morning to talk about the nature of reality, Sandburg? Or is it more fun if I just keep guessing?"

"I don't think so," Blair chuckled softly. "Your guesses are sounding hazardous to my health."

Jim opened his eyes. Blair was sitting with one leg drawn up, his elbow propped on his knee, and his chin resting on his hand. His other leg was stretched out straight, foot turned up and his stubbed toe so purple-red Jim thought he could probably feel the heat of the inflammation from here. Blair's open shirt shadowed his bare chest, but Jim could see well enough to know there were no scars, no wounds. Of course there weren't. It was just this case, spooking both of them. He never should have let Blair become so deeply involved. Maybe the only thing to do now was to figure out a way for them both to leave town for a little while. Put some distance between them and this damned bloody mess of an assignment. It would be rough on Simon, but he would just have to understand, this time there simply wasn't a choice.

"How long has it been bothering you, Jim?"

Blair's soft voice startled him out of his thoughts. "How long has what been bothering me?"

"This, man." Blair turned his hand, clasped Jim's wrist, and drew Jim forward until his hand lay flat against the center of Blair's chest. The curling mat of hair was soft under his palm, and Blair's flesh was warm and smooth, unbroken, his heart beating strongly underneath. Jim had not realized how badly he needed the reassurance of that touch until Blair guided him to it. His head dropped in relief, and he left his hand there for long moments, until Blair released him. Jim reluctantly allowed his own hand to fall.

"It's OK, Jim," Blair said quietly, then laughed again, that soft chuckle in a voice still a little scratchy from sleep. "No, I know, it isn't OK right now, that's the whole problem, but _I'm_ OK, and I'm going to stay that way. We both are. The thing is, there's something going on here. I don't understand it, not all the way, but ignoring it won't help. It's just gonna get worse. That's the one thing I'm pretty sure of. Look at you -- you don't feel any better even though you decided to drop the case, do you?"

Jim shook his head slightly, pinned by Sandburg's searching blue eyes.

"I know you think I'm the last person in the world who has any business lecturing anybody on the nature of reality, and who knows, you're probably right. And about Incacha and his nixi honi tea -- yeah, Jim, I know there's a physiological explanation for what was going on. The indole ring in harmaline looks a heck of a lot like serotonin, so it's no wonder he would get high as a kite when he was drinking that stuff. And he had a cultural context that told him how he was supposed to interpret the pretty picture show in his head. The days he took preparing the drug, the fact that he knew he was doing this to help his people, and that he believed there were entities who would assist him and keep him safe while he was tripping -- all that stuff kept him sane, let him understand what was happening to him no matter how wild things got. When I was out of my head on golden, I didn't have anything like that to ground me. I didn't even know I'd been drugged until those burned people started coming out of the walls --" Blair's voice faltered. "I didn't know even then. I just thought the world had turned inside out. Same thing when I was in that cave with a broken hand and my senses all fried from Paul's drug. I was totally lost, just reaching out for anything I could to make sense out of a complete neurotransmitter soup." Blair stopped again to take a long, shuddering breath, trying to hang on to that patented I've-got-it-all-under-control-now Sandburg aplomb. "It's all chemical. I know that. I _know_ it, but you know what? So's friendship." He met Jim's eyes again, steadier now. "So's love. So's everything. We've talked about this before, and I know neither one of us really likes the answer very much, but when you come right down to it, there's no such thing as consciousness apart from the chemical reactions that create it."

Jim wasn't sure he was following any of this, but he latched on to what he wanted to believe was the most important. "You're telling me you understand that the visions aren't real. Not the one you had last night when you fell out in the hallway and thought you saw the twins. Not any more real than the things you saw on golden or when you were stranded in that cave. Just the brain playing tricks. None of it was real."

Blair was nodding solemnly, with the air of guiding Jim along in a great discovery. "That's right. But you know what the crazy thing is? Things that aren't real matter anyway. Incacha was right. They're maybe the most important things of all."

"You lost me at that last fork in the road."

"I don't think so," Blair's voice was steadier and more sure. "Otherwise why were you so scared that maybe something had stolen my heart out of my chest?"

"What are you talking about?" Jim whispered, even though the denial seemed pointless.

"Jim," Blair's voice was as gentle as his eyes. He put his hands on Jim's shoulders, half turned on the bed to face him. "What happened to Gwen and Trish. The way their bodies were mutilated. It's reminded you of something that wasn't real, that couldn't have existed." All at once, Sandburg's air of calm evaporated like steam from the first cup of coffee in the morning that, come to think of it, Jim could really use about now. Anything to stop what Blair was about to tell him. He did not want to hear this. Whatever it was, he was absolutely certain he did not want to know. Blair was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling with the effort to calm himself, but somehow he managed to keep his voice level and reassuring, even though his face was flushed with sudden emotion. "You remember, Jim, going out to the point one really cold, rainy morning during the Singleton trial?"

Jim didn't realize he was trembling until he raised his hand and saw how badly it shook. He laid his palm against the side of Blair's face anyway, trapping a few locks of Blair's tangled hair between Blair's scratchy cheek and his own hand. "I remember," he said.

"I'm sorry," Blair said. "You don't have to think about it if you don't want to. Probably a lot better if you don't. I just --"

"Blair." A moment before he'd wanted to run from this, but that wasn't an option, it never had been. "Chief, please."

There wasn't much left of it a year later, just the memory of the two of them on the beach, sleet pattering down, bouncing on the rocky strand and stinging his face. Blair had been cranky and shivering, running to catch up, complaining on and on about the weather. He had good reason to, considering there really wasn't any excuse to be out here this time of year, this hour of the morning, in this kind of weather.

No excuse, except Jim had needed the time and the uncomfortable place to be sure he remembered. The gates of hell had swung open wide for James Ellison, and Cerebus had come roaring out with the rain, grabbed a leg and chomped down hard. Growling and snarling, worrying him to the ground, and he would have dragged Jim straight back down to hell with him, except for Blair. Blair had saved him by interposing his own body between Jim's and that black hound of hell. Yeah, it was all metaphor and simile, Jim had known that even at the time, but whatever had really happened during those three lost days was too dark and slippery for Jim to hold onto. That morning on the beach he had stopped trying, because Blair told him it was all right, and he'd kept only the symbols. Like the black jaguar that slunk from the corner of his thoughts when he tried to be someone other than the man these senses had made him. Not real, but desperately important all the same. So there wasn't any big cat. Jim was still a Sentinel. And Blair still bore scars from a fight that could not have happened. If Jim looked carefully in the morning, right after Blair had shaved, he could see the tiny puckers of flesh, white against the olive skin of his throat.

"Talk to me, Jim." Blair's voice was worried. "Tell me what you're thinking."

Jim slid his hand down Blair's face and tipped Blair's chin back to bare his throat. Blair's eyes went wide, but he didn't resist. Morning bristles shadowed his neck. Jim could see the traces anyway. He touched them with his fingertips, faint pearls of scarred flesh.

"You nearly died," Jim said quietly. He felt very calm and suspected it was the numbness of shock. "And now you think it's happening again."

He could see Blair had not expected him to say that. The color drained from Blair's face. He opened his mouth, starting to speak, and then clamped it shut again. He wrapped his hand around Jim's fingers and pushed Jim's hand away, not ungently, but with a sort of brusqueness wholly at odds with the deliberate way he'd approached every previous step of this morning's strange journey. "No," he said at last in a strangled voice. "Not the same as before. I don't believe it. We're all right, you and me. We have to be." He did not sound all right, though, and he scooted across the bed, away from Jim and swung his feet around to the floor. "Sorry about waking you up, man," he muttered as though talking to himself. "Guess I really need to think stuff out some more. How about if I get the coffee started?" He stood too quickly, evidently forgetting his stubbed toe, and stumbled hard.

"Watch it," Jim rolled on his hip and sat up after him. He managed to snag Blair's wrist. "Don't fall down the stairs."

Blair went stock still, only his shoulders trembling, standing to take the weight off his foot. He didn't pull away again. He continued to stand there, breathing with his mouth open a little, gazing away across the open space beyond the loft, allowing Jim to hold his wrist. "Hey," Jim said at last. He could feel the upside-down lightness in his stomach too, and a sick, flushed heat making his face burn. "I know, Chief. I'm scared, too."

"Jim," Sandburg blurted out. He turned fast and blundered into Jim's arms. Jim caught him, awkwardly trying to stand up, but Blair was already too close for Jim to get to his feet, so Jim drew him in while still sitting on the side of the bed, Blair's thighs between his own and his arms securely around Blair's waist. Blair made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. He held Jim's head in both hands and then put his arms around Jim's neck, lowering his head until Jim could feel the ends of Blair's hair prickling. He laid his head against Blair's chest and felt Blair's heart thundering hard against his temple. Blair's open shirt hung to either side of his head, warm from the heat of body.

"Oh man," Blair whispered at last. "I'm sorry, I'm OK. Just sort of snuck up on me there. I'm OK." He gave no indication of letting Jim go. "We are OK, I'm sure. The mistake I always made before was trying to do it on my own."

"You're not alone," Jim said. He spread his hands over Blair's back, willing his touch to be the reassurance Blair needed, and then said, because he had to ask, "Guess it would be too easy to simply get out of town for a few days, huh?"

Blair almost laughed. Jim felt his chest rise, and heard the gust of air that was close to a chuckle. "Nice idea, man," Blair said in a very, very quiet voice. "But I'm pretty sure it wouldn't help."

"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of," Jim said. He squeezed Blair tighter for a moment, then relaxed his arms in case Blair wanted to be released from the embrace. Instead he felt Blair curling closer over him, dropping his head to rest his cheek on Jim's head. Jim felt the soft tangles spilling down the back of his own neck. "So what's next?" Jim asked. Blair's heartbeat was already calmer against his face.

There was a pause. "Breakfast, I think," Blair finally said. "I'm afraid it's gonna be a long day."

20: parangua, parana, brazil (ten years ago)

 

"This, then, was the anthropologist's return - only a shade more dismal than the ceremony which had marked his departure."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes-Tropiques_

 

It was cold in the little back room, which seemed odd to Blair. He didn't think they had traveled far enough south to feel so much of a difference. Maybe it was having crossed the mountains, or maybe it was something no more mysterious than a change in the weather. He had awoken early this morning to the sound of rain pattering down on the street outside. The smell of wet asphalt reminded him of home -- Cascade, anyway, where it was always raining. He had missed the rain his last year in Southern California. The thought of returning to that bright, hot place made his aching heart feel all the heavier.

He was still cold, though, despite the wool shirt Marcus had found for him to wear, and shivering made his side hurt. Everything hurt, but for the most part the pain was dull and far away. They'd given him something at the clinic last night that had knocked him flat, and this morning Marcus had given him two more pills with breakfast. Instant Cream of Wheat and coffee. Marcus apologized for the meager fare, but he had been entirely unimpressed by Blair's announcement that he wasn't hungry and didn't need any medicine, and in the end it was easier to simply eat breakfast and take the pills.

The rain had stopped after lunch, which had been tomato soup thinned with canned milk and some kind of sweet crackers that had made Blair feel queasy after he'd dutifully eaten a couple. Marcus had been gone since breakfast, and the brother who fixed his lunch was under a vow of silence. Blair felt faintly guilty to be so glad of that, though he did wish he'd asked the brother to pull the window shut when he'd returned to take the lunch dishes away. Blair couldn't make up his mind whether it was really worth getting up to do it himself now.

He was sitting sideways on a cot shoved up against the rough wall of the little room. Plaster over stone, probably three or four feet thick, to judge by the deep recess for the window. The mullioned pane was swung open to the alley behind Nossa Senhora de Rosario, and from time to time, Blair could hear the long, low blasts from the tugs out in the harbor. Maybe it wasn't the open window at all making the room feel so cold. These thick walls probably held the cold all winter long. He heard a seagull calling, its dismal shriek sending a shiver up his spine because it sounded so much like Maria Amelia's scream. He closed his eyes against the painful rush of memory, but it was all so close it hardly felt like memory at all. He felt the flush of terror burning like coals ready to burst into flame just under the surface of his skin, and a sorrow so profound it seemed as though his very heart and mind would be drowned in it. He wondered if he would ever stop feeling this way, and what would happen if he didn't. Was that how people went crazy? Reliving some awful thing over and over again until the darkness finally crowded out the possibility of light altogether. And the alternative seemed no better. How else did you get over it except by forgetting, and what kind of a monster was he anyway? To want to forget that because of his lies and his carelessness, a family had been torn from their home, and a man was dead.

Suddenly he couldn't sit still a second longer. He lurched to his feet, the stone floor cold under his soles, and then just kept going because falling down would hurt worse than walking did. Five steps, five more, and he was at the open window, resting his arms on the deep sill and looking out at the rainwashed alley. Across the brick pavement was the back of a line of white houses, their neat wooden shingles slanting down almost to street level. A white cat who looked yellow against the whitewashed walls was strolling from back door to back door, pausing to sniff at the jambs, then continuing on her way. She started when Blair came to the window, crouching down low and looking across the street at him suspiciously.

"Wish I knew where they kept the canned milk around here," Blair told her. His voice rasped. "You'd be welcome to it."

The cat's ears went back for a moment, and then, evidently deciding he was not after all worth her attention, she straightened up again, tail twitching, and stalked away. Blair heard footsteps in the corridor beyond his room, and he felt himself flinch, drawing into himself like the cat had done. A hand knocked at the ancient paneling, and then the door swung open to reveal Br. Marcus, his arms full of books. "Blair, my dear young man," he said. "What do you think you're doing out of bed?"

"Nothing," Blair said quickly, and the guilty tone he heard in his voice made him feel a little sick. He wondered if he would always sound like that now. "Shutting the window," he amended. "It was cold." He stretched over the sill, trying to reach the edge of the open window, but was stopped by fireworks that burst sputtering and hot in his side. He hung on, white knuckled and panting, hearing books fall behind him, and Marcus's short, angry cry of alarm.

"Do you have to be watched every minute of the day?" Marcus caught him, his arm around Blair's back, trying to be careful of his ribs. "It's all right. I've got you."

"I'm sorry," Blair said, and had no idea why he was apologizing. "I'm sorry." He counted every step back to the cot, clutching Marcus's robe and trying to take shallow breaths.

"Be careful," Marcus said. "We're not in any hurry." One more shuffling step, then another. Marcus grasped his forearms tightly and helped him sit on the edge of the cot. "Go ahead and lie down," he directed. "You're not going on any more expeditions this afternoon."

Blair hated to do it, remembering what an effort just sitting up for the first time in the morning had been, but Marcus was a calmly irresistible force. Blair lay back, clenching his teeth hard. The crossbeams overhead were stained black. The church was centuries old, Marcus had told him. Most of it had been remodeled over and over again over the years, but the ambulatory and choir still retained elements of the original architecture. He'd promised to show Blair when he was feeling better. It seemed a pretty unlikely eventuality right now.

Marcus touched his wrist to Blair's forehead. "Feel feverish?"

"No," Blair whispered.

"We're supposed to watch for that, you know."

"I'm OK," Blair said, and felt like crying. He shut his eyes so Marcus wouldn't see.

"I've got good news," Marcus announced. His voice was brisk, but the hand he had laid on Blair's forehead lingered gently until Blair opened his eyes again. "Benedito called from the airport. Your friends were able to board without any trouble."

"My friends? Oh." Realization dawned. "The other kids at the mission? You mean they're leaving Sao Jeronymo?"

"It seemed safest. I told you last night, but I suppose you don't remember very much about that."

"No," Blair whispered. Memory had become so strange. Like the antique mirror that hung in the upstairs hallway of the house where Naomi's great-aunt Rebecca had lived. Shadowed by an immense, overhanging frame of mahogany, the silver tarnished and peeling off the back, so that when you looked into it you saw, not yourself, but the dark face of a familiar stranger.

"They found your passport, Blair. You'd left it with your backpack back at the mission. Last night you couldn't remember if you'd had it with you at Orinoco's house when the soldiers came or not."

Blair nodded his head on the pillow because Marcus seemed to expect some response. "I should have flown out with them," he suddenly realized. "Then you and everyone else wouldn't have to bother with me anymore."

Marcus's expression turned grim. "It's a very good thing you weren't there," he said. "Joao and some of his men turned up at the airport."

"Oh my god," Blair whispered. He felt his heart pounding in his chest, and the sick, hot flush of fear mounting in his cheeks again. No more. Please, no more. His mouth was so dry he could hardly get the words out. "Did anything happen?"

"No, God be praised, nothing happened. They just watched the boarding passengers. The plane's on the way to Sao Paulo. They'll catch a connection to Mexico City there, and I won't lie to you, Blair, I'll be happier when I hear everyone from the Baptist mission is out of the country, but at least they are beyond Joao's immediate sphere of influence now. If he didn't do anything while they were still in Curitiba, he's unlikely to try anything now."

"What about the American embassy? A man's dead! Don't they even care?"

"Do they care? Yes, I presume they would. Do I trust them? No, Blair, I do not. Not when your life is at stake."

(I don't matter that much. The truth is I barely deserve to live.) Blair knew enough not to say those things out loud to Marcus though, so instead he asked, "Then what am I supposed to do? Just hide in this room forever?"

Marcus smiled at him. "Somehow I don't think you have the temperament for the monastic life."

Blair tried for the smile Marcus seemed to expect, but it hardly mattered that he didn't say what he was really thinking out loud, because Marcus laid his hand on Blair's forehead again and looked down at him seriously. "What is it? What's going on in that serious young mind of yours?"

"How am I going to get home?"

"I have a berth on a freighter leaving next Monday for Portland, and if you don't mind the company, we decided the best thing would be for you to travel back to the States with me. Anthony was supposed to be going home too, but he he'll be just as glad to spend another few months in Parana. The captain has been ferrying brothers around the world for a quarter of a century now, so he won't care about the last minute substitution either." Marcus grinned, conspiratorially. "I believe the old reprobate thinks he is earning himself time off in purgatory, and who am I to say that he isn't?"

"I can't do that."

Marcus cocked his head. "Why not?"

"I want to stay here. I want to talk to someone at the American consulate, make sure people know what Joao is doing. I'm sorry, Marcus, I appreciate all the trouble you've gone to to set this up and everything, but since I'm here anyway, I need to stay. Maybe I can't change anything, but it's the least I can do. I have to try."

"Blair," Marcus told him, exasperated, "You are very brave and very foolish, and though we are told the Lord loves holy fools, I don't believe that obligates me to leave you to your fate."

Blair closed his eyes and finally said it anyway. "But it's all my fault. How do you expect me to go on the rest of my life knowing that?"

Marcus was silent for such a long time that Blair finally gave in and opened his eyes again. "I'd like to try and call my mom."

Marcus hardly seemed to have heard him. He exhaled noisily at last and asked, "What do you think our Lord meant when he said the kingdom of heaven itself was subject to violence?"

Blair turned his face away. "I don't know. I'm Jewish. I lied about being converted because I wanted the chance to travel and meet the people I'd read about in anthro classes."

"Oh, Blair," Marcus said gently. He turned Blair's face back and smiled sadly at him. "It's just as well, you know. You weren't a very convincing missionary."

Blair tried to sit up, but it hurt too badly, so he lay back, panting and angry and told Marcus, "You don't understand anything. It's all my fault. If I hadn't lied - if I hadn't come to Brazil, none of this would have happened. Hemisfereo would still be alive."

"Stop it. You're very young, and I know all young men think their lives are so significant everything that happens in the entire universe must have something to do with them, but you're smarter than that, Mr. Sandburg.

"I know what you're trying to do," Blair muttered, still angry.

"Do you." Marcus sounded unimpressed. "Then you can humor me a little while longer. The justiceiros had been watching Orinoco and his family for months. Hemisfereo's wife died last January when their house was burned, and it was an open secret that Joao's men were responsible. Hemisfereo was the only vegetalista in the area, and the military police had long been suspicious of so many people coming and going. What happened while you were there could have happened at any time. It had nothing to do with you."

Blair squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, hardly hearing what Marcus had said to him. "You're just trying to make me feel better, but there's no point, Marcus. I know --"

"I'm sorry. I know it is probably easier for you to believe you are responsible, because otherwise you would have to face the reality that terrible things happen in this world, and most of the time there's nothing anyone can do to prevent them."

"You don't know anything," Blair hissed, his face turned away and tears escaping from behind his tightly closed eyes. "Just go away and leave me alone."

Marcus got up. Blair heard his footsteps crossing the floor, and the creak of the windowpane as Marcus pulled it shut. Then he heard Marcus picking up the books he had dropped when he came into the room and stacking them on the simple desk pushed against the opposite wall. The chair creaked as Marcus sat down in it. Pages turned. After a long while, when the tears had dried on his cheeks and he was no longer breathing so hard and painfully, he turned his head and opened his eyes to look at Marcus.

Marcus glanced up. "I thought you might get bored waiting for the ship to leave next week," he said, smiling. "I don't have many books, just a few old favorites I brought with me. I thought you might like to have something to read."

"Thanks."

Marcus laid the book down on the desk, and Blair asked, quietly, "Hemisfereo was really a vegetalista?"

"It means herbalist. Medicine man, I guess you would call him."

"Or shaman," Blair said. "I know. I mean, I didn't know he was one. All the time I spent in Orinoco's house, he never said anything to me."

"To a boy he presumed was a Baptist missionary?" Marcus said, smiling again.

"But he told me something before he died, Marcus. I thought I was just dreaming."

"You should rest," Marcus said. "Give things time. You don't need to think about it now."

"Marcus, I saw things too. What if they weren't a dream?"

"Why, I don't know," Marcus said seriously. "What if they weren't?"

"I don't know," Blair said. His eyes closed, in weariness, not emotion this time. "I don't know much of anything. Is the cat still here?"

He was asleep before he heard Marcus's answer.

   
****

21: cascade, washington (8:15 wednesday morning)  


"Funny how memory works sometimes," Blair suddenly volunteered after a silence that had lasted all the way through breakfast and the drive across town. It hadn't been a tense silence, or a worried one, particularly. Sandburg just acted as though he'd already said everything that needed saying this morning.

Now, out of the blue, this. It would have been a loaded remark even without their conversation this morning. Jim thought about how to answer while the traffic light half a block ahead changed from yellow to red without a single car in the left lane having managed the turn. He knew better than to take Chestnut at this hour of the morning, dammit, but he just hadn't been thinking. So preoccupied he wasn't paying attention to where he was going. Or to much of anything else, for that matter. Which was more or less exactly why he should have been going to the station to tell Simon he couldn't handle this case, instead of driving across town to talk to Fred Angelone about his murdered wife and child.

"Yesterday at the nursery there was this little white cat," Blair went on. "Seeing that cat made me remember something I haven't thought about much in a long time. Wasn't until just now, or a little while ago, anyway, I was able to make the connection. Weird, huh?"

Another of those trademark clear-as-mud explanations. Great. Jim watched the traffic ahead bleakly, wondering if he could manage to get out of the left turn lane and turn right around the block instead of left.

Blair laughed. He was scrunched down in the seat, one knee against his chest, his foot flat against the dash. "Guess that didn't make a whole lot of sense," he admitted. Despite the cool spring weather he was wearing rope sandals because they were the only thing he could stand to have on his foot. Jim could see an angry purple half-moon under the nail that made his own big toe ache in sympathy. Watching the way Blair had been limping around this morning as he tried to get ready, Jim had suggested going to the ER, only to be blithely informed that Blair trusted him way more than an X-ray tech. Jim didn't know whether to find it flattering or a little frightening.

"You know, Chestnut is always totally gridlocked at this hour of the morning," Blair remarked helpfully. "I would have taken Market Street east, and then cut over on M.L. King."

"Thanks for the suggestion," Jim said, watching the traffic in the right lane in the rearview mirror. This was ridiculous. He'd get back in the other lane as soon as there was a break.

"Hey, glad to help." Blair whapped him on the shoulder, grinning for a moment. Then he started in again about the white cat and how strange memory was. "See, I'm wondering now if I remembered it at the time, or if it just made sort of a subconscious impression, if there is any such thing, and it just stuck with me. Things have been kind of overwhelming the past couple of days."

Jim didn't make the comment that came to mind about Sandburg's selective gift for understatement. "Anyway, that cat made me remember this white cat I saw ages ago. Not that there was anything all that special about it. It was just the way I was feeling at the time. I don't know. Like my whole life was either ending or beginning, and I wasn't sure which. I was in Paranagua when it happened. I think it's probably Porto do Parana now."

"Paraguay?" Jim asked. "No, Brazil."

"Brazil, yeah."

Jim was concentrating on getting out of the turn lane, and it wasn't until he had managed the jump back into the right lane and made it through the traffic light that it dawned on him that after all that, Blair apparently wasn't going to say anything else. He glanced over. Blair's hands were clasped over the knee he had pulled against his chest, and his head was turned away, as though he were enthralled by the rush hour traffic.

Jim wasn't sure he wanted another two hours of silence, even a companionable one. Brazil -- what had Blair told him about Brazil? "You met Brother Marcus there," he said, suddenly remembering.

Blair didn't turn his head. "That's right," he said quietly. "I didn't know it then, but he must have gone there to have the plastic surgery done. He still had bruises on his face, but I was just a dumb kid, I didn't know anything."

That sounded so unlike Blair Sandburg's usual assessment of himself that Jim reached out and put his hand on Blair's shoulder, squeezing hard before he had to drop his hand to shift down for the next light. "You still angry with him for being Jackie Kazinski?"

Blair turned back. "No. No, I don't think so, anyway." He shrugged. "Like I've got any right to judge people for who they used to be."

"What's this all about, Chief?"

He turned to see Blair's expression. It didn't tell him a lot. Guileless blue eyes open wide, hair still damp from the shower and pulled back in a neat ponytail, the babyfaced smoothness that would be gone by lunch making him look younger than his years. He wasn't exactly smiling, but he didn't look unhappy either. "I met a shaman when I was in Brazil that time, too." Blair said. "His name was Hemisfereo, and he told me -- he told me that if I was strong and wise, the white souls who take care of the universe would take care of me too."

Jim smiled, feeling a familiar, not-unwelcome tug at his heart. "So was he right?"

"The strong-and-wise part is probably open to debate." Blair grinned back. "But he got the rest of it OK." He reached over to tap Jim's cheek with two fingers, then knotted his fist in Jim's coat sleeve. Finally he let Jim go and shifted on the seat, putting his foot down on the floorboards and muttering to himself. He propped his foot up again and asked, as though the significance of their route this morning was just now dawning on him, "You're not going to talk to Mr. Angelone at the station?"

"We're meeting him at his office."

"You're letting him just go into the office by himself? Is that really safe when whoever killed his wife and kid is still out there somewhere? What if they've got a grudge against him too?"

"I know," Jim said. "Simon thought the same thing. He's had people with him since he left the station yesterday afternoon. A patrol car was supposed to escort him to work this morning."

Another thought occurred to Blair. "Geez, where did he spend the night last night?"

"The Ritz Carlton, I think."

"God. And I thought I had a bad night. Doesn't he have any family in Cascade?"

"He and Trish moved up here from L.A. just three years ago, so there aren't many ties. His parents are dead. There's a brother in New York. Trish's mother lives in Santa Cruz, her father in Palm Springs."

"You've been checking up on him," Blair said soberly.

"Standard procedure, Chief, you know that. We ran the same checks after the kidnapping."

"Yeah, I know. It's just hard to think about." Blair took a long, deep breath. "It's just not fair, you know? Here's this family that's overcome so much, had tragedy come so close to them, and then despite all the odds they get a second chance. And then something even worse happens to them. Like they were marked or something. Doomed from the start."

Something about Blair's tone of voice made a silver wisp of cold curl up Jim's spine, and talking about doom only made him think about his own misgivings all the more. "I need to know exactly what you're saying to me here, Sandburg," His voice was sharper than he'd intended. "We talked about some strange things this morning, you and me both, and I'm not convinced that either one of us has any business going on with this case. Not when it's got us both spooked so bad. "

"I understand," Blair said, and then fell silent again, as though that were enough.

It wasn't for Jim, but he gave Blair half a dozen long blocks north before saying anything else. Traffic began to thin as they reached the outskirts of the warehouse district. Jim glanced at his watch, noticing they were going to be on time for the interview after all, and then said, "The bottom line, Sandburg. Are you sure you're all right with this?"

"Yeah," he answered calmly. "I'm OK."

"The other thing --" Jim was watching street signs for Jewell Street. The pavement was in worse shape this far up, sidewalks buckling up, weeds lush as unmown grass growing up between the lots. There were signs every once in a while of the renewal efforts in this part of town -- an espresso bar, a line of condominiums in a refurbished brick warehouse, some sort of upscale garden shop with an eight foot statue out front of an impassive woman draped in a toga that left her ample cast-stone bosom bare. It caught Blair's eye, of course. He turned his head as they passed it.

"Give me a break, Sandburg."

"Oh, lay off," Blair answered, unperturbed. "I was just wondering if that place was where the Angelones bought those fancy garden tools. You don't usually find stainless steel garden forks at the local hardware store."

"You're probably right. Fred told us yesterday Trish was the one who bought all the gardening tools. We'll stop in on the way back, see if they remember her."

Blair nodded. "What was the other thing you wanted to say?"

There was Jewell. Jim hadn't needed to worry about missing it -- it was obviously the center of the renewal project. The broad sidewalks on either side were paved in brick laid in a herringbone pattern, and the street itself was white concrete that gleamed in the morning sun. In high summer it would be blinding. The brick and stone warehouses on either side had been sandblasted, the grounds around them terraced. Flimsy young trees were staked with guy wires, and the ranks of shrubbery all had a fresh-from-the-nursery lushness. The smell of thick cedar mulch made Jim sneeze.

"Gesundheit," Blair said automatically. "Yeah, I smell it too. Strong."

A blue and gold patrol car was parked on the curb, a patrolwoman at the wheel. Jim pulled alongside and stopped, and Blair rolled down his window. "Hey," he said, raising his hand in greeting. "How you doing?"

Jim didn't have to see Blair's face to know the kind of smile he would be giving the young officer. He leaned across the seat, Blair putting his foot down and flattening himself against the back of the seat to make room for him. "Quiet morning?" Jim asked.

"Yessir." The officer looked immediately serious. "Hardly seen a soul. I guess these offices aren't open yet."

It seemed an accurate assessment. There were only three cars in the parking lot beyond. The new asphalt shone black, every parking space marked by neat white numbers. One of the cars in the lot was the rental Angelone was driving while forensics went over his Mercedes. With a nod to the officer, Jim drove around and pulled in next to Angelone's car.

"I think these spaces are reserved," Blair pointed out. Jim just looked at him, and Blair grinned back. "Well, don't blame me when you get towed again."

Blair had already slid out of the truck, landing gingerly, before he turned around and saw Jim was still sitting there. "Hey," he said seriously. "There was something else you wanted to say."

Jim nodded. His hands were lying empty in his lap, and it was easier to look down at them than to meet Blair's half-anxious expression. "The bare bones, Sandburg. Don't worry about sparing my feelings. I need to know the truth."

"Come on, Jim." Blair leaned across the seat and grasped Jim's forearm through the coat sleeve. "I've never lied to you." Jim looked up and saw the tentative smile on Blair's face. "I never thought I did that great a job of sparing your feelings either. What is it?"

"This is all right, isn't it?"

"You keep asking me that. What do you mean?"

Blair's forehead wrinkled in concentration, his eyes searching Jim's face. In another minute Jim was afraid he'd put on his glasses in order to examine him more closely and so just went ahead and asked it. "Are you sure I can do my job here, Sandburg?"

"Yes," Blair said simply, no hesitation at all. "I'm sure."

Jim closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath, trying to release everything. Blair's hand tightened on his arm. Jim could still smell blood and viscera, faint and omnipresent as a red gel over the spotlight of the sun. Blair was certain, though. So Jim was as well.

He covered Blair's hand with his own and opened his eyes. "Forensics went through his office yesterday." He swung open the door and only then did Blair release him. Jim looked up at the sky when he was out of the truck. Seemed like it was going to be a nice day when they'd left this morning. Half an hour later and a dull white cloud cover had rolled in. It felt colder too. Blair limped at his side, muttering to himself. The walk through the terraced landscaping was rough stone that had been salvaged, Jim supposed, from the original building. It was hard going for Blair in hemp-soled sandals. "Doing OK there, Chief?"

"I'm OK. It just keeps sounding to me like you think Fred did it."

The door to the lobby was a massive construction of oak and stained glass, ten or twelve feet tall. It swung open smoothly though, and Jim held the door for Blair. "We haven't ruled anybody out at this point," he said.

"Wow," Blair remarked mildly as the door shut behind them. "I guess there really aren't any tenants yet." The floor was wood, presumably, covered with layers of plastic sheeting. The brick walls were flecked with peeling white paint. Grit lay like snowfall over everything, piles of lumber, sawhorses, a stack of marble tiles protected by more plastic sheeting, the outlines of a built-in reception desk, similarly swathed. A path of footprints through the grit and dust led to the elevator. "What a mess." Blair picked his way lightly, trying to avoid scuffing up more dust. "When were they supposed to be open for business?"

"About six months ago." The elevator doors opened as soon as Jim punched the button. The lush red carpet on the floor of the elevator was covered with plastic sheeting too.

"A little behind schedule, huh? How much of Fred's money is tied up in this place?"

"Good question," Jim said. On the sixth floor, the doors at the back of the elevator opened onto a startlingly light space. They were on the top floor of the building, and a skylight overhead let in the dull morning light. This suite of offices was more finished than the lobby. The paint had been sandblasted off the walls, and nameplates were on a few of the doors that stretched away to either side. But there were sawhorses and lumber here too, and pushed up against the balcony under the skylight was a conference table with half a dozen chairs upended on top of it.

Blair made his way to the balcony and looked over. "Nice," he said. "If you have to work in an office, this place wouldn't be too bad."

"Can I help you?"

Jim turned. A very young woman in a business suit that made her look like a child playing dress-up had come out of the first office. Her eyes were red from crying, and there were white half-circles on her cheeks where she had tried to scrub away the running mascara that still showed in blots at the corners of her eyes.

"Jim Ellison." He showed her his badge. "Mr. Angelone is expecting me."

Angelone was in the office behind her. Jim could smell his cologne over the young woman's perfume, as well as the flat smell of good coffee cooling in a styrofoam cup. It reminded him of the first search of Fred Angelone's car the night before, and the ghost memory of blood was suddenly overpowering. He reached out blindly for Sandburg who was still a few steps away, but who came forward at once, as though Jim had called him by name. He put his hand on Jim's shoulder, then at the small of his back and left it there as he told the young woman, "Hi. Blair Sandburg. This'll be a pretty nice place to work once everything gets cleaned up, won't it? Lots of natural light."

The world came back into focus slowly, the pressure of Blair's hand at his back steadying and centering him as Jim redrew the boundaries for himself. This was real, the here and now. Blair's touch, his closeness, the warmth of his body, the quick sound of his breath, the caress of his voice talking gentle, distracting nonsense. Everything else came afterward, almost without effort. The slightly bewildered expression on the young woman's face, the heavy industrial smells in the building, the sound of Angelone pushing back the chair and standing up, walking to the door.

"Hello, Jim," he said quietly. He raised his hand as if in apology. "Detective. Sandra, it's all right. I don't need anyone to answer the phones today. Why don't you go on home? Get a fresh start tomorrow morning."

A fresh flood of tears poured down the girl's face. She nodded, wiping ineffectually at her eyes, and started for the elevator. The doors had opened before she remembered her purse and came stumbling back for it. When she left a second time, she was clutching it against herself like a shield. "Take it easy," Blair said. "Nice, uh, meeting you." She nodded without turning her head as the elevator doors shut behind her.

"I appreciate you driving down to talk to me here," Fred Angelone said. He ran his hand back through his hair, looking over his shoulder into the office behind him, then at Jim again, then at Blair. Through Blair. He never seemed to really see Sandburg. Jim had noticed that before, the way for some people Blair simply fell so far outside the acceptable parameters he was completely overlooked. And the inevitable shock of surprise when Blair was finally seen, usually too late. It hadn't happened to Angelone yet.

"I don't -- " Angelone was saying. He had begun backing into the office where Jim could smell the cooling coffee, gesturing Jim forward with his hand, but then he came out again, as though realizing he did not, after all, want to find himself shut up in such close quarters. He began again. "I don't know what more I can tell you. Oh." His face went white and he put his hand over his mouth. "There's been an arrest, hasn't there?"

"No," Jim said. "I'm sorry. We're still looking."

Angelone nodded and dropped his hand. His lips were trembling, as were his fingers. He looked like a man who would fly into a thousand pieces at a single sharp word. "Do you need to sit down?" Jim asked.

"No," Angelone said. "No. It's better if I keep moving. When I stop I start thinking again, and when I think --" He drew a circle in the air with his index finger, in a jerky, fast movement. "Round and round, over and over again."

"What's that?" Jim asked.

"Wondering if Gwen knew." Emotion coarsened his voice. "If she was frightened. I can't stop thinking about it. Just a little girl. Dear God." He took a long, shuddering breath. "I just can't -- I should have been there. Maybe if I'd been there it would have been different."

"You might have been killed too," Blair offered, his voice very kind, and Jim recognized, with a start, the echo of something he had once told Blair.

Angelone glanced at Sandburg again with that blank, blind gaze, then looked back at Jim. "What can I tell you, Detective Ellison? What do you need from me to find the people who did this?"

"I'd like to start with the reason you weren't there that night," Jim said.

"I was in Seattle, like I told Captain Banks. It was just a routine business trip. I don't understand what good it can do going over this." His tone was exhausted, not querulous. "Unless you think -- oh my god, do you think someone was watching me? Waiting until I was gone?" He swayed on his feet, looking on the verge of collapse.

Jim reached to steady him. "I really think you should sit down."

Angelone pulled his arm free. "I'm all right." He laughed, on the verge of hysteria. "All right. Jesus Christ. I'm sorry," he gasped. "I'm sorry, Detective. I'm not myself." He covered his face with his hands, taking deep, racking breaths.

"Hey." Blair had moved away from Jim, though he glanced back at him before putting his hand on Fred Angelone's trembling shoulder. "I know it's bad, man. I know it. Maybe if you can try to think about something else for a little while."

Angelone nodded and looked up. His eyes were red rimmed but dry.

"I'd really like to see more of the building," Blair went on, as though this were the whole reason he and Jim had shown up today. "I think it's a great idea, refurbishing these old places instead of just bulldozing them for high rises or something. I mean, this office is beautiful. Look at these oak floors, that woodwork around the doorframes and stuff. You couldn't find anyone to do this kind of work anymore even if you wanted to."

Angelone just looked at Jim, bewildered. "Would you mind showing us around the office?" Jim tried.

" No, I don't mind." He shook himself like that would be enough to settle himself back into his old life. "I'm proud of it. You know this is why I moved from L.A.? This property was going for a song, but I could see the potential. Trish too. A new beginning for Cascade's northwest side. Start of something really big." He waved his hand in the direction of the skylight and central atrium. "Have you checked the cost of housing in Seattle recently? Much less office space? It's just a matter of time till Cascade starts to get the overflow from Seattle's boom."

"But it hasn't happened yet," Jim said. "What's your occupancy rate here?"

Angelone was leading the way along the sunlit corridor, having to sidle past an untidy heap of half-assembled office furniture. A set of particleboard bookshelves with an oak veneer trim and the pieces of two or three executive chairs leaned against the railing over the atrium. Someone had left an electric drill resting on the seat cushion, and the bit had punched through the upholstery. Angelone saw it at the same time Jim did, and he picked it up with an exclamation of annoyance. "It's the little things," he said. "People just don't care anymore." He ran his fingers over the rip in the fabric.

"You're obviously running a little behind schedule," Jim said. "Has that made it difficult for you to sign tenants?"

Angelone sighed, looking around for some place to put down the heavy drill. "Here," Blair prompted, and took it from him to lay it on the bookshelves beside an untidy collection of other abandoned tools. A plastic case of bits, a phillips head screwdriver, a wooden mallet and tape measure. It seemed Angelone was right about the degree of apathy. Jim could see the marks from the mallet's head where the bookshelves had been hammered together.

"No," Angelone said firmly. "No, the problem is that Cascade businesses can't see the potential in the northwest side. They'd rather locate downtown. The key is going to be pulling in outside firms. Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, L.A.. This is going to happen. It's just a matter of time."

"That's why you were in Seattle," Jim said. "Talking to prospective tenants."

"That's right."

"You told Captain Banks yesterday that you keep an apartment in Seattle. That's where you were planning to stay yesterday evening."

Angelone nodded, his face white.

"Just how much time do you spend in Seattle? Must be a lot for an apartment to make economic sense."

"It's just a few days every other month or so. The truth is, the apartment is left over from when Trish and I were having troubles with our marriage. I'm just waiting for the lease to run out."

"You and Trish hadn't been having troubles recently?"

Angelone met his gaze steadily. "No. Since the kidnapping we've been committed to working things out between us."

"Did you realize Trish had scheduled an appointment with her lawyer for tomorrow afternoon? She was going to re-file her complaint for divorce."

"No." Angelone was whispering. "No, I had no idea. Why wouldn't she have told me?"

Blair was standing a little behind Angelone, his arms on the polished wooden balustrade, staring forward at nothing at all. His face had gone blank with grief. "I think she did tell you," Jim said.

"You're wrong."

"A divorce proceeding would have been the final straw for your dream here, wouldn't it? A custody battle, alimony, child support -- it all would have taken time and resources you can't possibly spare right now."

"Exactly." Angelone's hands were trembling violently. He clasped them together like a man at prayer. "That's exactly why she wouldn't have done this to me. Not now."

"Because it would have been like cutting your heart out," Jim said softly.

"Yes," he whispered, his lips barely moving. His eyes were swimming with tears.

"Let's go down to the station." Jim put his hand on Angelone's shoulder. The man looked as though he were about to faint. "We can talk more there."

Angelone squeezed his eyes shut. Jim glanced up at Blair and saw imprinted on his friend's face a sorrow so profound he might have been grieving for the whole lost and damned human race. "Come on," Jim told Angelone, pulling him forward gently. " Just take it easy."

He nodded clumsily, taking one shuffling step forward. Then he opened his eyes, raised his head, and looked at Jim.

Before his mind could understand what his eyes were seeing, Jim heard himself scream, "Sandburg, RUN!" He grabbed for his gun as the thing in Fred Angelone's body reached out. Jim saw a blur of movement and felt the rush of air. He fell back, trying to get his gun up, but Angelone brought the mallet down across his forearm with such violence Jim heard the crack before he felt the pain. He thought the crack had been the wooden mallet breaking. It wasn't until he found himself on his knees, his own voice shouting in animal pain that he realized something had broken in his forearm instead. He was trying to tell Blair to get out, and he was trying to find his weapon, and he was trying not to drown in his own sickness and horror and pain. The stink of blood filled his head, and there were three hearts beating so loudly they all but deafened him.

But then he heard Blair shouting for him, and he heard the explosion from the gun he hadn't found in time, and he heard Blair grunt in agony, and then fall silent.  
__

No.  


Oh, no.

Another body hurtled against his own, and the other one was hot and stinking of sweat and desperation and fear. Jim fell back, the pain in his arm so monstrous he blacked out. When he came to, he was still shouting with grief and pain. Fred Angelone knelt over him, straddling his chest. Jim felt something burning in the center of his forehead, and for an instant he had the insane thought that what he felt was his third eye trying to open. The irony of it shattered his heart. What possible hope for enlightenment did he have without Blair? It was too late for everything. It didn't matter. The circle of heat was only the muzzle of his own weapon Angelone was holding, pressing it hard against Jim's forehead while the creature Angelone had become wept its bloody crocodile tears.

   
****

22: Paranagua, Parana, Brazil (ten years ago)

 

"If men have always been concerned with only one task - how to create a society fit to live in - then the forces which inspired our distant ancestors are also present in us. Nothing is settled; everything can still be altered. What was done, but turned out wrong, can be done again."  
Claude Levi-Strauss _Tristes Tropiques_

 

At the bottom of his backpack was a small, lightweight bundle carefully wrapped in a knotted bandanna. Blair fished it out, puzzled, and turned it in his hand. The bandana was his, but for a long moment, he couldn't think what he had tied up in it.

Brother Marcus recognized it before he did. He smiled. "I'm glad that made it," he said.

"Oh." Blair laid the bundle down in his lap, suddenly feeling slightly sick. After a pause he unwrapped it anyway, picking the knots apart carefully, unwrapping layer by layer until Zenaida's little wax totem lay revealed in the palm of his hand. It looked no worse for its journey to the coast, black and white beads intact, the same calm expression on its mis-proportioned head.

"What did you tell me its name was?" Marcus asked.

"Just the Little Old Man," Blair said softly.

"Yes, that's right. The god who came down to earth and wasn't recognized."

Blair only nodded. He remembered waking up that morning in Orinoco's corn crib, the smell of coffee and smoked meat, the mist rising at the edges of the forest. The joy of his discovery. His certainty that he had found something that mattered, that would matter for the rest of his life. Everything had been absolutely new and fresh, the whole world before him.

But it turned out that the universe itself was immeasurably old, not young at all, and ragged with almost unfathomable pain and grief.

Blair lifted his head, glancing towards the closed window. It was raining again this morning, and the thick walls of the church were damp and cold. A simple wooden crucifix hung on the wall above Blair's bed, another totem of grief. As though anyone needed to be reminded, he thought bitterly. His dreams last night had been so vivid and continuous he hardly felt like he'd slept at all. He had only to close his eyes to feel his body begin to thrash in the panic of drowning. Sometimes he thought he was in the swamp with Hemisfereo, and sometimes it seemed he was in Pastor Cleary's baptismal pool, his lungs aching for air, water that tasted like stale cooking grease burning his throat.

A car engine backfiring on the street before dawn had awakened him for the last time, and he had sat bolt upright in bed, weeping from the pain in his side and the memory of the gunshot that had ended Hemisfereo's life.

He was suddenly angry with Marcus, and didn't stop to puzzle out why. Just that heart and body were hurting still, and the people responsible were far out of reach. That left only himself and Marcus. "So what was that supposed to mean anyway?" he snapped, hoping to pick a fight.

Marcus tilted his head, not understanding the question. "What does what mean?"

"What you started to tell me yesterday. About violence in heaven."

"Ah." Marcus nodded. "'From this time until the present, the kingdom of heaven has been subject to violence, and violent men bear it away.'"

"Yeah. That." Blair was wrapping the little figure again in the bandanna. He couldn't stand to look at it right now, but he found, somewhat to his shame, that he couldn't let it go either. "Not a whole lot of comfort in that, is there?"

"I don't think it's meant to be comforting."

"Then what's the point?" He looked up at Marcus, challenging him.

"Exegesis is not one of my gifts," Marcus said calmly, but Blair saw his eyes half-close, blue depths dark with compassion, and the tears Blair had been trying to avoid suddenly welled in his own eyes again. "But I can tell you what it has always meant to me. That we cannot look for peace in the next life until we've found it in this one."

"Well that doesn't do anybody any good," Blair whispered angrily. He shoved Zenaida's totem down in his backpack.

"Tell me, Blair, why do you want to be an anthropologist?"

"I don't want to anymore," he said, still clutching Zenaida's totem in the depths of his backpack.

Marcus continued as though he hadn't spoken. "I think it's because you have a good and generous heart, a heart that loves humanity so much it believes no evil is beyond comprehension, and no violence so terrible it cannot be unraveled down to the threads of what produced it."

"Just words," Blair muttered. He squeezed his eyes shut. "They don't help anybody."

"There are a lot of good hearted idealists in the world whose greatest accomplishment is simply that they don't mean to do harm," Marcus said. He reached out and laid his palm against Blair's temple, startling Blair into opening his eyes wide and looking at him. "You will never be one of them. Your mind is too hungry. And despite your gift for obfuscation, your soul is too honest."

Blair swallowed and didn't look away.

"And I think perhaps you've seen heaven," Marcus said quietly. "And that you have enough courage to carry that memory with you back into the world."

"The violence you mean? " Blair wasn't angry anymore. He simply wanted to know. "Hurting and craziness and almost dying? What kind of a heaven is that?" Even as he asked the question he was remembering those stark moments of sight, as though a veil had been torn asunder.

Marcus shrugged, smiling in sympathy. "My faith teaches me that we live in a fallen world, and I can see with my own eyes that it's true. But you're the one who wants to study mankind." He took Blair's arm and tugged it gently out of his backpack. Blair was still clutching the totem, and he suddenly smiled, feeling like a raccoon who wouldn't let go of a ball of tinfoil to escape a trap.

Marcus said, "So I suppose it will be up to you to find out."

 

   
****

23: cascade washington (8:50 wednesday morning)  


It had hurt worse when Klaus Zeller shot him, and that time he'd been wearing a vest.

Funny.

The impact of the bullet pushed him into the balustrade, and he braced himself against it, knees locked, trying to take a breath, mostly being glad he wasn't any taller. Little more height, and he would have gone tumbling right over it backwards.

Bet that woulda hurt too.

One thing at a time now. Slow and easy. A lot was depending on him, so he had to make sure he got everything right. No time for pain or fear or grief. Just do what had to be done, and scream about it afterward. So here we go man, a couple of quiet little steps, sneak up behind Mr. Angelone and god, I don't know, bash him over the head or something. Anything. Just get him off Jim.

And do it fast. Before he blows Jim's brains out.

Jim kept crying out. Hurt, hoarse groans of anguish, over and over again.

Hang on, Jim. I'm coming.

Blair took one step and crashed to his knees, both hands pressed hard against the slippery, hot hole in his side. His head hung down. (Mmm-hmm. Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.)

Jesus, Sandburg, get a grip.

He found himself staring at the red droplets spattering down on the carpet. Ironic. Practically the only length of carpet in the whole building that wasn't protected by plastic, and he was bleeding on it. He concentrated on those falling drops. They didn't show up all that much against the red carpet. They might dry kind of rusty looking was all.

Shit, he was drifting. Concentrate, dammit, concentrate. This is pretty bad. OK, so this is as bad as it gets. No problem. Just stop screwing around and go straight to Plan B now.

All he had to do was think what that might be.

What had Jim seen? Too late, oh god too late. Just before he had screamed.

He'd never heard Jim scream before. Not like that.

All right, never mind. Turned out there wasn't time for thinking after all.

"Hey." Blair got his head up at last, proud of having spoken out loud. Jim suddenly fell silent. Fred Angelone was still crouched over him, his gun to Jim's head. There was something hot and slippery oozing down Blair's back. Soaking under the waistband of his jeans. "Hey, Mr. Angelone." Blair pulled one knee up, trying to figure out how to stand up again. "Got news for you. Jim's nothing, man. Not when you've still got me to deal with."

Angelone hunched his shoulders like there was a fly buzzing around the back of his neck and he couldn't spare a hand to swat at it.

Blair wondered why he hadn't shot Jim yet. Not that he was complaining. But the rest of it had happened so fast. "See," he told Angelone, trying to keep his voice conversational, "The thing is, I had this dream last night."

It wasn't hurting that bad, it really wasn't. But he just couldn't make it to his feet. When he tried, the dull kicked-in-the-ribs sensation turned ice cold and desperate, and blackness fell before his eyes like a curtain of his own hair. He gave it up fast. If he passed out, he was pretty sure he wouldn't be waking up again. "Wanna know what I dreamed about? Hey, Mr. Angelone. Are you even listening to me?"

He couldn't tell if Jim's eyes were open or not from where he was kneeling, but Jim was lying so still, so quiet.

"See, I dreamed I was flying above the world, looking down at everything. And you know what was really wild? Everybody I could see, everyone I knew, they were all just shadows. Didn't matter how smart they were, or how pretty, or how strong, or what they'd done with their lives. It didn't even matter how much I loved them. Everybody was just a shade, a gray shadow moving across a gray world."

Angelone's head came up. He still had the gun to Jim's forehead.

"I bet that's the way you see the world too, isn't it? Shadows and ghosts. I guess that's something we have in common, you and me. We both know the truth. The world's nothing but ashes. Or maybe not even ashes. Just a reflection of a fire that's burning somewhere else, a long, long way away."

God help him, there was so much blood coming out of him. His hands were slick with it, reeking, and cold as ice, and the blood was so hot. (Was that what Jim had been smelling all along? No wonder the poor man had wanted to get away from this case. Hey, by the way, Jim, you win. This was a really bad idea. We should've just gotten out of town like you wanted to.)

Blair realized he was dizzy, swaying on his knees, and a strange, terrible calm had begun to creep up on him. He knew that was bad news, because there was nothing to be calm about. He was three quarters of the way to getting both Jim and himself killed.

"So what I'm wondering is why you won't look at me. Did you think I wouldn't notice? I noticed. What's going on? Are you scared? Scared of _me?_ Give me a break. You already put a bullet in me. What the hell have you got to be scared of?"

No good, no good, he could see Angelone start to shake. He must be pushing too hard. "Hey, hey easy. It's all right. I know why you're scared to look at me. I know."

He was sick too, and though his hands were cold, his face was burning with heat. He didn't know if it was shock or blood loss or just being scared out of his mind. Except, he wasn't scared. Not for himself anymore. It already seemed over and done with, as far as he was concerned.

But oh, Jim, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

"Like I told you, I've been on the outside, looking back in." He realized his breath wasn't very steady, tried to take a deep gulp of air, and nearly passed out. He curled forward because he couldn't help it, one hand on the floor, the other still clamped over his side. After a few moments the worst of the darkness passed.

"I can't stop you from killing Jim," he whispered finally, and saying the words out loud made tears come to his eyes. "I can't stop you from killing me either. I don't know. Maybe you already have. But you're only wipin' out a shadow. The other place is the one that matters, and I'm already there, man. No wonder you're scared of me." Blair smiled without humor, thinking just how un-scary he was right now, on his hands and knees on the carpet, probably well on his way to bleeding to death.

"I've had one foot on the other side since I was eighteen years old," Blair said anyway, because giving up was unthinkable. Not while Jim was still alive. "And I see things. Want to know what else I saw last night? Lots of stuff. Lots of stuff. I was wide awake when I saw two baby girls who died five years ago. They came to tell me that they died for the same reason Gwen did. The Betsileo cover it up with stories and taboos, but the truth of the matter is, a nomadic mother doesn't have the resources to raise twins. And you -- well, I guess you were running out of resources too."

The light changed. Blair lifted his head to see. It was Angelone, getting up over Jim. Standing, then turning around to look down at Blair. He was clutching Jim's SIG Sauer in a two-fisted grip. Blair followed the line of the barrel until he was looking into Angelone's face, and tried to decide what he was seeing there.

He didn't know. He just couldn't tell. He didn't know what Jim's sentinel eyes had seen. All he could see with his own rather near-sighted eyes was that Angelone was crying too. His jaw was set, though, and there was no tremor in his hands. "In the Andes, they call it susto," Blair whispered. "Soul loss." It was hard to talk with his throat outstretched, keeping his head up so he could look Angelone in the face. "You're like some kind of walking black hole, sucking up light and heat and life, looking for what you're missing. Jim looked at you, and he knew. I guess maybe that's why you haven't killed him, thinking since he could see it was missing, somehow he could give it back to you."

Angelone shuffled a step closer. The barrel was so close now it was making Blair cross-eyed. "And killing me, well, I told you already. You don't want to do that. See, there's a rope of stars that runs up the tree at the center of the world like some kind of waterfall. You know I can hear it when I close my eyes? And that's the path out of here. I could take you there. Maybe even get your soul back for you. What do you say?"

Jim suddenly loomed up behind Angelone. He was groaning with every breath, but Angelone's eyes were fixed on Blair, wild with terrible hope, and he didn't hear a thing. Jim swung the mallet one-handed. Blair didn't see where it hit, but he heard the thump, and felt a hot, wet spray across his face.

He heard Jim's roar of triumph and rage, and he saw Angelone crumple, his knees folding up, his arms dropping. For a moment they were face to face. Angelone's eyes were still open. Blair stared back, still not sure what he was seeing, far less what Jim had seen.

Then Angelone slid sideways and fell the rest of the way, ending up in a heap against the low wall under the balustrade. The filtered light from overhead seemed to wrap everything in pale gray. There were no shadows. Blair raised his eyes and looked at Jim.

Jim was still holding the mallet, his arm upswung even yet, but after another long instant, seeing that Angelone didn't move again, he let his arm fall. The mallet dropped. "Sandburg," he said in a hoarse voice. His right arm was held awkwardly across his stomach.

"Jim, you're hurt." Blair fought to get up. "How bad is it?" He closed his eyes, trying to will the weakness and pain away, but nothing was working. His arm gave out and he sprawled flat, feeling a burst of heat in his side that made him cry out.

He felt the thump as Jim fell to his knees beside him, and heard Jim cry out in pain as well. Oh, Jim. He opened his eyes, his arm underneath himself, still trying to hold back the life leaking away from his side. He saw the red carpet, smelled dust and coppery blood, and suddenly sneezed.

In the shock, almost everything went away. He could feel the contractions of his own heart thundering painfully in his chest. Every pulse hurt. He heard himself whimpering, no strength left even to scream, far less enough to clamp down on the helpless sounds and keep them inside, much as he wanted to. Jim didn't need to hear this. Jim was hurt. He needed help.

And then he felt Jim's warm hand, his touch so gentle Blair could feel the trembling in Jim's arm as he laid his hand on the back of Blair's head. "Lie still," he said, his voice low and calm, though Blair could hear the ragged edge of pain. "Breathe."

Breathing. Right. That's what he should be telling Jim to do. Blair tried to regulate his breaths, calm now, slow and steady. Jim's hand rose, leaving cold in its wake. Jim fumbled for something, gasped, and the cellphone bounced on the carpet beside Blair's head. More of the world was coming back to Blair. "Jim, it hurts," he complained, and he dragged one knee up, jeans pulling against the carpet.

"I know," Jim whispered. His hand touched the back of Blair's head again, brushing softly over his hair. "Stop squirming and lie still." Once again he took his hand away, this time to pick up the phone. Blair shut his eyes and concentrated on getting his knee up under himself. He heard Jim's voice, so businesslike, so urgent, before the phone dropped again, further away this time, and Jim whispered, "Just a few minutes more. Hang on for me."

"How bad is it?"

"You're gonna be all right," Jim said hoarsely. Blair felt a hot pressure on his back and decided it was the palm of Jim's hand, bearing down hard against an ache that went all the way through him. "Just keep the pressure on it from the front too." Jim's voice was a whisper, half -gasping the words out.

"No," Blair hissed in pain and frustration. "Not me, Jim. You. I saw him hit you. I was too far away. Couldn't get to you --" It was too recent and too sharp, and he flinched from the memory the way he had from the gunshot. "I thought he was going to kill you." And dammit, he was crying, a few leftover tears spilling over. He clenched his fist in frustration, and felt Jim curling over him more closely. Jim's forehead came to rest between his shoulderblades, the weight of Jim's head stilling him, distracting him from the pain in his side.

"Easy," Jim whispered, but he was hurting so much. Blair could hear the pain in his voice. "I'll be all right."

"You need to focus," Blair stopped trying to move, and kept his hand clamped over the bullet wound in front, because he knew that was the only way Jim would stop and listen to him. "You've gotta take control now, before the pain gets to be too much for you. You can do this, man. Just like we practiced for."

He felt Jim turn his head against his back, and he half expected Jim to protest, but Jim only whispered, "I'm with you, Chief. Tell me what to do."

"No," Blair said in frustration. "The whole point is you can do this by yourself. In case I'm not here."

"But you are here," Jim said. "Keep talking to me. Tell me what to do."

"Oh," Blair whispered. "OK, you're right, I'm here." Was he drifting again? Seemed like kind of an obvious thing to have missed. "Tell me if I'm not making sense though, will you?"

It sounded as though Jim chuckled. His head moved, cheek rubbing across Blair's shoulderblade. "All right, I promise. What do I do?"

"Just like we practiced," Blair said. "You don't want to get so tuned into the pain that it shuts down everything else. It's bad enough for you to hurt so much, but I think it's the way you focus on the mechanism of pain awareness that interferes with painkillers and anesthesia. We really don't want that to happen now." Blair's tongue felt thick in his mouth, and he was afraid he was slurring his words. He concentrated, slowing down, trying to say only what was essential. "So find another sensation, all right? Just let the pain be. Don't push it away, don't fight it. Just look at something else. Feel something else. You still with me?"

"I'm with you," Jim said, in that voice that always humbled Blair.

"What are you feeling?"

"You," Jim said. "The fibers in your shirt against my face. Your body heat. Your heartbeat. It's strong, Sandburg. You're gonna be all right."

"I know." It seemed to be working both ways. The more he concentrated on the heat and weight of Jim's head on his back, the less he felt the pain in his side. "That's good," he said after another moment, when he realized how long he'd been silent. "Just keep concentrating."

"I am," Jim assured him. "What have you been putting in your hair? Smells like that damn chamomile tea."

Blair's laugh came out as a long, noisy sigh. Best he could do, but it seemed to be enough. "You really hate that stuff, don't you? OK, Jim. I won't make you drink it anymore." He shifted a little, and felt Jim bearing down harder. The movement and the pressure both hurt.

"Careful," Jim breathed. "Keep still."

"Yeah, I am." Blair tried to straighten his knee anyway, but Jim was right, it was better to lie still. "Concentrate, man. I'm right here. Probably pretty hard to ignore, actually."

Another half-moaned laugh from Jim. "Even in the best of times, Sandburg."

Blair grinned hard. "Never much for blending into the background, was I?" He felt like he was trying to talk around a mouthful of marbles, and it was easier to fall silent again, safe with Jim curled so close.

But then Jim asked, "Can you keep talking? Your voice helps me."

He kept talking. His eyes were closed, and he was trying to ignore the scratchy carpet fibers under his cheek, the uncomfortable way he was hunched on the floor, and dammit, even his big toe was hurting, but Jim was right here, and they were going to be all right. "Didn't tell you before, but I saw you, Jim. Yesterday afternoon, at the nursery."

"I wasn't at the nursery," Jim said quietly.

"No, I know you weren't. I mean, I didn't know it right then. I'd been thinking about you so much, all frustrated you'd gone off by yourself when I knew you needed me on this case. I KNEW it." Whispering was too much effort. Easier just to talk out loud. "And then you were there. Because you were there, in my heart, in my head. So all the ordinary world, all the shadows went away for just a second or two, and I saw what was real."

"You're not a shadow to me." It seemed like a long time had passed. Blair wondered if he'd been asleep, and he remembered he was supposed to keep talking. But Jim wasn't upbraiding him for his silence. His voice was matter of fact, just very, very quiet. "You're light and color and noise and heat. But never a shadow."

"Not to you," Blair agreed, hearing how drowsy and thick his voice was. "I know, Jim."

   
****

 24: aboard the capitaine paul-lemerle (ten years ago)

 

"Adventure has no place in the anthropologist's profession; it is merely one of those unavoidable drawbacks which detract from his effective work through the incidental loss of weeks or months ... the fact that so much effort and expenditure has to be wasted on reaching the object of our studies bestows no value on that aspect of our profession, and should be seen rather as its negative side."  
Claude Levi-Strauss, _Tristes Tropiques_

 

Blair thought it might rain today. The swells were gray as the weathered teak steamer chairs on deck, and the sunrise this morning had been red and spectacular. Bands of orange and gold steaking across the east before the clear scarlet disk of the sun finally appeared, and an instant of utter stillness as it hovered there at the horizon. Even the hum of the engines and the ever-present rustle of water against the hull had been eclipsed by the silence of dawn.

Blair felt he had perhaps slipped out of time anyway during these long, quiet days. He spent most of his afternoons on deck, under a canopy rigged in front of the wheelhouse for the comfort of the half dozen passengers on board the freighter. With the exception of Blair, they were all Franciscan brothers returning from the field. Blair was usually the only one under the canopy.

He closed Marcus's book, holding his place with his thumb, remembering the stillness of dawn. He should be writing this down, he thought. These moments he would want to remember. The idea startled him as soon as he thought it. Something was changing already, far more quickly and profoundly than he would have dreamed possible only a week before. It made him feel faintly ashamed to realize he was already thinking of his first journey out into the world this way. As only the first. There would be more, and he would want to remember this one, because it had been the first, and because it pointed the way for all the ones to follow. More vital than the twinge of shame, though, was a half-breathless flutter of excited fear, and some other emotion that he had no word for, save that he could recapture it by remembering the low, moaning note of Orinoco's whistling bottle.

He smoothed his hand over the cover of Marcus's book. Just the weight and smell of the old paper made his heart lighter, and the tales of other travelers and other times diminished his terrified sense of self importance. He was so small, despite what he had done and seen. There was so much behind him, and so much still to come. Perhaps it should have saddened him, but instead it made him feel exhilarated and hungry, as though he could never know or see or experience enough.

He opened the book again, lingering over the title page. There was so much wonder just in those old names, the archaic spellings, forgotten places, and vanished worlds.   
__

A Mission to Gelele, A Kind of Dahome. With Notices of the So-called "Amazons," the Grand Customs, the Yearly Customs, the Human Sacrifices, and the Present State of the Slave Trade, by Sir Richard Francis Burton, 1864.

A shadow fell across the page, and Blair looked up to see Marcus smiling down at him. "Ready to discover the source of the Nile, are you?"

Blair smiled back. "Maybe next summer."

"Wouldn't surprise me a bit," Marcus said. "Just write me a letter every once in a while from the Mountains of the Moon, or wherever you happen to find yourself. You think you could to do that that for an old man who is leaving the world behind?"

"Of course I'll write," Blair said instantly. Everything was possible. Beyond the gray vastness of the ocean, under the low white canopy of a clouded sky, lay everything he would ever dream of. He just had to find it. "Of course I'll write, Marcus. I promise."

   
****

25: cascade washington (later)  


There was something he needed to talk to Jim about. He remembered it during the long gray hours while surrounded by people who weren't Jim, but it never failed, every time he woke up to find Jim at his side, it would totally slip his mind. Typical. Things were so complicated anyway. He knew there was no point worrying, not while he was stuck flat on his back and couldn't do a damn thing about any of it, but it nagged at him all the same. Classes had started Friday, including the section of 101 he was supposed to be teaching, and no one would tell him when he could expect to get out of here and get back to it. It had probably already been given it to the next grad student down the long waiting list by now.

Just like his spot in Herrell's seminar in Ecological Consciousness too, though that didn't begin until Monday. He didn't figure he'd make that one either though. Frustrating. Not much point in showing up at all this quarter, was there? Might as well go ahead and take a leave of absence, since it wasn't like his dissertation chair could become any _more_ pissed with him by this point was it? So he should just stop fretting about it already.

That left worrying about the case, which was even worse. He got confused when he tried to piece together what he'd heard from Simon, ending up with nightmarish visions of Fred Angelone. He saw him creeping down the stairs from the loft, shadowed against the brick walls. His hands were full of things, too many for him to carry, and he kept dropping them. Gardening tools, stuffed animals, an electric drill trailing the cord, Jim's gun. When he turned his face towards Blair, Blair saw that the side of his skull had been broken like an eggshell.

No, that was just a dream, not real, not real at all, but he couldn't make himself wake up from it. He was standing by the open front door, key still in the lock, bag of groceries in his other arm, staring in stupid terror, unable even to scream at the dark silence at the head of the stairs. If he could just drop the groceries, get the key out of the lock, something, anything, he could stop this now, he was sure of it.

But he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything but clench his fist in impotent frustration. He felt something bite the soft inside of his wrist, quick and sharp as a snakebite. He yelped and opened his eyes.

He saw blue curtains hanging down from the ceiling, suspended from a curved metal track. Acoustical ceiling tiles. Somewhere nearby someone was watching TV. Stock car racing, by the sound of it. He turned his head and saw more of the blue curtains, and Jim sitting in the chair beside the bed, holding a book open on his knee with his left hand. His other arm was immobilized against his chest in a blue sling more or less the same color as the curtains. "Jim," he whispered, still making his way back from the dream. He felt so groggy and confused. Aggravating when there was so much stuff he needed to figure out.

Jim smiled at him and laid the book aside on the bed side table, then leaned forward to take Blair's hand, curving his palm over the back of Blair's. "Have a good nap?"

"I wasn't asleep," Blair said solemnly, trying to decide whether that was true or not. "Just thinking about stuff."

"Ah, right. And you think better with your eyes closed." Jim was still smiling, but he looked so wan to Blair, and his cheekbones were too prominent, as though he hadn't been eating right lately.

"What's the matter with you?" Blair complained, lifting his hand from under Jim's and trying to touch Jim's white face. He couldn't manage it until Jim scooted closer to the bed and lowered his head a bit. Blair brushed Jim's temple with his fingertips and then laid his fingers against Jim's cool cheek. "Is your arm hurting you?"

"Nothing I can't live with. It's all right."

Blair wasn't reassured. He put his hand on Jim's upper arm, rubbing gently. Maybe it was only his imagination, but already the heavy muscles were feeling slack and unused. "This really sucks. I'm sorry."

Jim shook his head, and though he was still smiling, it seemed to Blair that the edges of Jim's mouth trembled. "Nothing to be sorry about. It could have been a lot worse."

"I know."

Blair put his hand down on the bedclothes again. Jim sat up. "You thirsty?" he asked. "You sound hoarse."

Blair thought about that. "Guess I am, actually."

"Let's raise the bed first." Jim turned away, looking for the control buttons. "Ready?"

"Go ahead." Blair grinned up at the ceiling. "Like raising the Titanic."

"Tell me if it hurts."

"Don't worry, I'll yell."

"Just tell me, all right?"

"All right, all right."

The head of the bed slowly rose, and the change in pressure and position made Blair gasp even though it really didn't hurt. It just made him nervous. "Easy there," Jim said at once, his hand on Blair's shoulder. "Still with me?"

"Still here." Blair let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

Jim squeezed his shoulder in reassurance before he let go and picked up the styrofoam cup from the bedside table. Blair could hear the soft rattling of half melted crushed ice. "I got it," he assured Jim, trying to take the cup with the hand that didn't have an IV in it.

Jim just nodded and continued to hold the cup too, his hand over Blair's, while Blair found the straw and took a few cautious sips. The water tasted terrible, metallic and flat, but he was thirsty. Another sip, and he let Jim take the cup away. "Want me to put the bed down again?" Jim asked.

"No, leave it, OK? I don't want to sleep anymore right now."

"You told me you hadn't been asleep."

Blair just turned his head and smiled at the gentle teasing. "Whatever. I guess I must have been, because I had a nightmare about Mr. Angelone."

The expression on Jim's face immediately became serious, once again accentuating the pinched, tired look. His cheeks were so hollow, his lips bloodless. "It's all right," Blair said helplessly. "It was just a nightmare, I know that."

"You're safe now," Jim said, and it sounded to Blair as though he were trying to convince himself too.

"I know," he agreed. "We both are. I was wondering how he was doing and stuff. Has he woken up yet? Is he well enough to be charged?"

Jim sighed and looked away. "Are you sure you're up to talking about this now?"

"I'm sure. Simon told me some of what was going on, but I can't get it straight in my head anymore, and I think trying to figure it out is what made me dream about him in the first place. It's better if I just know. Then I can stop thinking about it."

The whine of stock car engines and the drone of the announcers gave way to the hysterical patter of beer commercials and that omnipresent Propecia ad. The noise had to be driving Jim crazy, Blair thought. He reached out for Jim's hand and Jim laid his palm over Blair's on the sheet without even looking down, twining his fingers through Blair's instinctively. "He woke up yesterday morning, Chief."

"Oh man," Blair breathed. He thought he was ready for this, but the emotion was more huge than he had expected somehow. "Am I going to need to testify?"

Jim's hand tightened around his for an instant. "Don't worry about it. He couldn't stand trial even if the DA did decide to bring charges. They're telling Simon there was extensive brain damage. The right side of his body is paralyzed. He can't even talk."

"Oh," Blair said, hearing how low his own voice was. "Brain damage -- like he's not really there anymore, you mean?"

"Too much of him is," Jim said tightly. "I didn't hit him hard enough."

"God, Jim" Blair muttered. He rolled his head away because he didn't want to see the look on Jim's face right now, but he kept his grip on Jim's hand. "So what's Simon so upset about?" he asked, trying to distract himself. "I couldn't follow it."

"There's still no evidence," Jim said. "The crime scene was clean, you know that. Unless we can trace the scrubs back to Angelone, the case is purely circumstantial. They're saying they probably won't bring charges even if he does recover."

"But that's crazy! He tried to kill both of us. He as good as confessed. I'll testify. I'll tell them, Jim. "

"Hey, hey, calm down," Jim said. He let Blair's hand go, so that he could lay his hand on Blair's forehead. His palm and fingers were warm. Blair took a breath, making himself stay quiet. When Jim was satisfied, he took Blair's hand again. "He didn't confess. I asked him to come down to he station, and he picked up the mallet."

"That's because he's guilty. Anyone can tell that. I can't --" Blair shut himself up again. Jim was right. He was having a little trouble staying calm about this, so he closed his eyes. He was afraid to take deep breaths because of the way filling his lungs put pressure on the ache in his side, but slow, shallow pants were all right. He counted his own exhalations. One. One. One. One. Then he looked into Jim's face again. Pinched and tired and hurting. If this was making him crazy, he could only imagine what it was doing to Jim. "He shot me," Blair said finally. "That's attempted murder. I want him charged with that. I'll press charges myself."

"No, you won't," Jim said. "You're going to lie there and get better and stop trying the fix the whole world right now. Got that?"

"But Jim --"

"If he recovers enough he'll be charged for the attack on us, I promise. That will put him away for a few years, at least. It's better than nothing."

It didn't look to Blair like Jim believed that. "Is he going to recover?" he asked finally.

Jim shrugged wearily. "I don't know. I don't think the doctors know. Severe head injury case like that, I guess it's hard to say." He looked away, as though there was something interesting in the distance. Blair knew there was nothing to see but the blue curtain.

"It's not right," Blair said, even though Jim already knew that. "It's not fair." Jim closed his eyes for a moment. He looked so tired. "Sorry," Blair whispered. "You should be home in bed. I'm OK here. You should go home and get some rest."

Jim shook himself like a man trying to rouse himself from a nightmare. "Brown was going to stop by after his shift and give me a ride home. I've got a couple of hours yet."

"You should call someone now if you're tired."

"I'd rather be here," Jim said simply.

"There's no arguing with you," Blair complained, unreasonably happy that he didn't have to let go of Jim's hand just yet. He lowered his voice. "So what would it take to get the guy in the other bed to switch over to the public TV channel? A nice restful Jacques Cousteau special or something is about all I'm in the mood for now."

Jim smiled, deep lines showing in his cheeks and the corners of his eyes. "Don't know. I tried flashing my badge after the first hour of stock car racing, but it didn't do any good."

Blair grinned and shut his eyes. He was tired too, it seemed like, because he immediately began to drift. Comfortably at first, the bed seeming to fall away beneath him. Nice, he thought. It was good not to be hurting anymore. On and on, winding slowly upwards, leaving everything else behind.

Leaving Jim. He opened his eyes fast, and caught an expression on Jim's face that made his heart go cold.

Jim wasn't just tired. He was afraid.

"What is it?" Blair whispered. "Jim, what's wrong?"

Jim's lips were pressed together in a thin line, and he'd banished, with an effort that broke Blair's heart, the expression of exhausted fear. "I'm all right." He freed himself from Blair's hand, patted Blair's shoulder and started to sit back. "Try to get some sleep."

Blair reached up with a speed that surprised himself and managed to grab a fistful of the front of Jim's shirt. "Like hell you're all right," he said, hanging on grimly. "It is about Mr. Angelone isn't it? Because you saw it too. Better than I did. I couldn't be sure, but you are. You saw it."

"I don't know what I saw," Jim said. "But I think I recognized it anyway." He took a shuddering breath. "Then I wonder if I'm losing my mind."

"You're not." Blair said. This was what he had meant to talk about. This was what he kept forgetting, and look what it had done to Jim in the meantime, trying to deal with so much craziness all by himself. "Jim, you're not. Or if you are, we're both going down together, all right?"

The corner of Jim's mouth twitched. He wrapped his free hand around Blair's, still knotted in his shirt. "Is that supposed to make me feel better, Sandburg?"

As jokes went it was pretty feeble, but it made Blair smile all the same. "All it means is you're in good company."

Jim nodded. "Great. That makes me feel just great." He let go of Blair's hand and placed his own on Blair's forehead once more, smoothing a few stray locks back off his brow. "You were just about to go back to sleep. It's all right. You need your rest. I'll be right here -- wake you up before I go, in case you need anything."

Blair made a face, feeling how lank his hair was under Jim's fingers. "I don't want to sleep. What I want is to wash my hair. It's about to drive me crazy."

"Ask the next time they give you a sponge bath."

"I don't want to make a fuss. Afraid they'll come up with an excuse to give me a buzz cut."

Jim smiled again. "What's wrong with a buzz?"

"Don't even try it. You're not even wearing one anymore."

"It's a lot less work."

"Jim, I said no."

He held up his hand in surrender. "All right, all right." Blair was still holding onto his shirt. Jim brought his hand down again and covered Blair's with his own, and only then did Blair let go, flattening his palm against Jim's chest, allowing Jim to keep his hand cradled there under his own.

He watched Jim, seeing the shadows under his smile even yet. "What can I do?" he asked Jim at last. "How can I make it better?"

"You can rest and heal," Jim said immediately. "That's all you need to do. That's all I want you worrying about. I'm fine, and Angelone's not going to be a threat to anyone ever again. As long as you get well again, that's the only thing that matters."

"I'm going to get well. Don't worry. That's not what I'm talking about, so please don't make me play Twenty Questions here, Jim. It's too much work, and I just don't have the energy for it right now."

Blair wasn't fighting fair, and he knew it. It worked, though. Jim's hand tightened over his own. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. There were lines of tension across Jim's forehead, and Blair could feel his chest rise as he took a long, deep breath. "Was that me?" Jim asked at last, his voice only a whisper.

It cost Jim so much to say those words, and to Blair's dismay, he had no idea what Jim was talking about. Dammit, it was so frustrating being stuck flat on his back like this. Not being able to gesture, to move around seemed to be impeding his thought processes as well. Lying here helplessly while Jim grieved for something Blair couldn't even figure out. He turned his hand, laced his fingers through Jim's and pulled Jim's hand to rest against his own face. Jim's eyes opened and he looked down at Blair, waiting for him, so sure that Blair had understood. And though he feared Blair's answer, he hadn't given up hope yet either. Blair could see that in Jim's clear, trusting eyes.

And Blair didn't know what to say. He didn't even know what Jim was asking.

Jim nodded at last as the hope died in his eyes. "Try to get some sleep," he told Blair. "We'll talk later."

But they wouldn't talk about it later. Blair knew they wouldn't. Jim intended to lock whatever this was away somewhere in that noble, broken heart of his and never let it out again. "Wait a minute, Jim," he blurted in desperation. "Wait for me, please."

"I'm not going anywhere," Jim said quietly, and Blair didn't know if he were being dense on purpose, or just being Jim the Literalist. Didn't matter either way, because he WAS going, just as far and as fast as that Ellison reserve could possibly take him.

"Just stop," Blair whispered furiously. "Don't even try it. You think because I'm laid up in a hospital bed I can't whip your butt? Got news for you, man. You're gonna stay right where you are and you're gonna to tell me what the hell you're talking about." Fingers still twined around Jim's, he pulled their clasped hands under his chin and tucked them there firmly. "What are you trying to ask me? Is WHAT you?"

"Easy, Chief. You're scaring the guy in the next bed."

"I don't give a damn about the guy in the next bed. You can turn on the intercom and broadcast the whole conversation to the nurses' station for all I care, but you're going to talk to me. Oh come on, Jim, please. I thought Angelone was gonna kill you right in front of me, and I don't know what I would have done. Just hope he killed me too, I guess."

Jim winced. "Sandburg," he began, but Blair went charging on, before the tears he could feel trickling down his face could steal his voice has well.

"But it didn't happen, Jim. You're alive. I'm alive. Try to tell me anything else matters. Just try it."

"It does matter," Jim said. "If I was like Angelone, it matters."

"If you were -- "

"That time I can't remember, during the Singleton trial. Blair, is that what happened to me?"

Blair felt everything shifting, a sudden lightness as though he were about to faint, and he hung onto Jim's hand like the lifeline. That's what Jim was afraid of? That he could ever have been that soulless monster? Oh Jim. Jim.

"No," he said. Calmer than he was feeling, because Jim deserved to hear this steady and certain and sure. "No, Jim, that wasn't you."

"Your nightmares," Jim said, just as calm, though his eyes had closed. "The things I saw too. What you came upstairs to talk about before we went to see Angelone. You thought it was happening again."

"No," Blair said again. "No, not the same. I won't lie to you, Jim. Not that it would do any good if I tried. Bad stuff happened during the Singleton trial. Really bad. You know that already, don't you? That's why you're freaking out now, because it seems like something you remember." Blair lifted his other hand then, the one with the IV in it, and carefully wrapped it around Jim's wrist. Jim got very still. Blair went on, "But it's not the same. Mr. Angelone went looking for his own doom. I'm no shaman, Jim. I don't understand everything I see, like Incacha did, but I am sure about this. I'm not even as sure of my own heart and soul as I am about yours, Jim."

He unwrapped his fingers from around Jim's, keeping his grip on Jim's wrist with his other hand, and pressed his palm to Jim's chest, beside his splinted arm. "You're innocent. You can't doubt that. You are."

Jim's eyes were still closed. He moved his head, shaking it a little, as though he could deny what Blair was telling him. "You _are,"_ Blair insisted, and the desperation he had felt earlier, the fear that he wouldn't understand and couldn't get through to Jim were disappearing now. He was too sure of this to doubt Jim would hear him too.

"Jim, man, have a little faith," he said quietly. "You're the best thing in my life. You're my heart. You're my center. When nothing else makes sense, I always know you will."

Jim's head was still bowed, eyes closed. Still as death. And hanging on Blair's every word so desperately he was hardly breathing. "So you want to give me some credit?" Blair said softly. "I'm not here because I feel sorry for you, or obligated, or worried about you. Hell, I'm not even here for my dissertation, Jim. I'm here because I love you."

Jim's eyes blinked open. He looked down at Blair with a face that was almost expressionless, save for the hope in his eyes. Blair knew that look so well. Once again Jim looking to him to somehow, impossibly, make things all right again. Half frightened, and wanting so much to believe. All it took was the right word, the right touch, and Jim would follow him to the ends of the earth. Beyond the ends of the earth.

He slid the hand on Jim's chest up as far as the collar of Jim's shirt, knotted his fist around it, and pulled Jim down so he could kiss the edge of his mouth. Gently, feeling how Jim's lips trembled, and then, at last, curved into a smile.

Then Jim turned his head and kissed Blair's face in return. "Get some sleep, Sandburg," he whispered gruffly, his breath soft and warm against Blair's cheek.

"OK." It sounded like a good idea all of a sudden. He relaxed his grip on Jim's shirt and Jim sat up again, slowly, so he didn't jar the arm that Blair still held against his chest. "Promise to wake me up before you leave?" Blair asked.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said. Blair heard the smile in Jim's voice that he couldn't see because his eyes had drifted shut again.

"Oh," he murmured happily. "OK, Jim. Hey," he said then, "You don't need to worry. All the weirdness. All the craziness and stuff. That's all over now."

He felt Jim lips brush his forehead. "It is?"

"'Course it is," Blair murmured contentedly, hesitating at the threshold of sleep only long enough to wonder why Jim would even need to ask. "I promise."

(June 1999)


End file.
